There's The Rub
by Jay-La52
Summary: There's The Rub, with a few subtle variations...Paris left before Jess came over and Dean arrived earlier. Lit.
1. Caught

There's The Rub

Summary: There's The Rub with a few...subtle differences: Paris never stayed and Dean arrived earlier than in the show.

A/N: **Just a warning to any readers: This chapter contains a lot of dialogue from the actual episode but, if anyone wants to read on, I won't be using anymore in future chapters (if I continue).**

Disclaimer: I own nothing, feel free to search me for confirmation.

Change Of Plans

'_Love means never having to say you're sorry.'_

What a load of crap.

'_Love means having to say you're sorry a lot'_?

Getting there.

'_Love means having to say you're sorry even when you don't mean it'_?

Close.

'_Love means having to say you're sorry at least four times a week, ninety percent of the time not meaning it and the other ten percent of the time not paying attention enough to know what you're apologising for'_?

Jackpot.

These were Jess Mariano's thoughts as he listened to Rory plough diligently through the routine apologies directed towards her boyfriend, Frankenstein II (or Dean, because Jess doubted he could get through that many syllables when introducing himself). He was thinking this because, for a couple supposedly "in love" – as Rory insisted they were whenever the topic came up – there was certainly a lot of dispute, which were apparently all Rory's fault since she ended up apologising for most of them. The reason Jess had such an extensive knowledge of their disputes were because he was present for a lot of them, owing to the fact that – and he acknowledged this with some pride – he seemed to be the cause of most of them.

Yup, the majority of the arguments started with "What's _he_ doing here?" or "Why are you with _him_ again?" or, on this occasion, "I thought you said you wanted to be _alone_ tonight", all executed with the same childish, whiny expression, reminiscent to that of a three year old deprived of the toy advertised of TV that would 'complete their collection' until the next piece of plastic crap came out. But, no matter how they started, these little disagreements always served to amuse and amaze Jess. Amuse because, well...Dean's angry expression alone was enough to warrant laughter and amaze because it was getting harder and harder to understand why Rory – intelligent, beautiful Rory – would ever care to associate herself with someone whose logic was more erratic than his mood and whose literary knowledge extended to Sports Illustrated and Dr Seuss.

This particular fight had started with a care package...

-Earlier that evening-

"Another half hour, please!" Paris was practically beginning now, despite the fact that they'd been over everything she'd brought with her and Rory had yet to find one gap in her knowledge.

"No, you had your hour, you need to go, my food'll be here soon." Rory persisted, gradually guiding Paris towards the door, hoping to salvage something of her evening alone.

"But-"

"Go!"

"Fine," Paris hesitated, "where are my flash cards?"

Rory rolled her eyes, "Under the coffee table: you threw them there when I didn't correct you down to the word on one of the answers."

"Well, you've gotta be precise to get-"

"Here," Rory thrust the cards into her hands, redirecting her to the door once again, "now can you please leave?"

"Fine, I'm going, I'm going." Paris relented, giving in and heading for the door.

"I'll see you at school on Monday." Rory said, relieved as she heard the door close.

She looked at the clock; 'Only 5:30,' she thought. She sank back down onto the couch, feeling the familiar drained feeling that she got from any extended time with Paris. She grabbed a book from the coffee table, sinking further into the warmth of the sofa as she relaxed a bit. She grinned, seeing the familiar writing in the margins of her book; she knew that handwriting anywhere, she came across it so often in her books: it was always neat, but at the same time looking quite rushed, as if his hand couldn't keep up with the ideas in his head. Rory felt a slight pang of guilt when she realised that she had no idea what Dean's – he boyfriend's – handwriting looked like, but she shrugged it off, figuring he didn't like writing that much, anyway.

Lately, Rory had come to realise that she paid less attention to the actual printed text than before, her eyes tearing carefully across the slanted notes, instead, marvelling over the thought he put into them, and the intelligent insight expressed, making her wonder why he was flunking around half of his classes.

The doorbell jolted her out of her thoughts, and she got up quickly, urged on by her empty stomach. However, when she opened the door, it wasn't the friendly delivery guy from Sandeep's, but none other than the owner of the cursive she'd been looking over moments before, carrying – her stomach grumbled – a rather large crate of food.

"Delivery." Jess said, casually, as if he hadn't just showed up on her doorstep out of the blue.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, her tone not matching the happy feeling in her stomach that she usually got when in close proximity to him.

"Well, Luke figured that since you were alone tonight that maybe you wouldn't have any food in the house, so he sent over a care package."

"I-I don't need a care package," Rory stuttered out, "I ordered food from Sandeep's."

"Really? Planning on burning down the house afterwards?"

"Jess..." she said, holding back the smile at hearing the same words from him that her mother had told her earlier; wouldn't Lorelai just love that?

"The only way to kill the smell. Where should I put this?"

"Well-"

"Kitchen?" he said, moving past Rory, into the house.

"Um...sure." she mumbled, as if her affirmative would have had any effect on his going into the house.

Following him into the kitchen, she took another look at the food, "God how much food is in there?" she wondered aloud, "This could feed twelve."

"Excuse me, I've seen you eat."

"Fine, six." she conceded.

"Yeah, well, he wanted you taken care of, he wasn't sure how long your mom was gonna be gone for."

"Just tonight."

"Huh, he didn't know that."

"Well, now you can tell him."

"I will."

There was a pause. Rory wasn't quite sure why he was lingering but, to be honest with herself, his presence wasn't exactly unwanted.

"So how come Caesar didn't bring this over?"

"I volunteered."

Rory raised her eyebrows, "Why?" she pressed.

"Just wanted to get out of the construction zone, there's nothing but banging and yelling; place gives me a headache."

"Oh." Rory said, hoping she hid her disappointment a little better than she thought she did.

A sly grin appeared on Jess' face, "Why – did you think I wanted to come over here and see you?"

"No." Rory said, trying to hide a blush.

"Just needed some quiet."

"Fine."

"That is all."

"Got it."

"Clear my head."

"I understand."

Another pause.

"So, aren't you gonna eat?" he asked.

"Eventually." Rory replied, the smell of the fries beginning to get to her.

"It gets cold fast."

"I can heat it up."

"Reheated French fries really suck."

"Hm, they do suck."

"Yeah, so...eat."

"Okay, I will." Rory agreed, waiting for him to begin to make his way out of the house. After a pause she decided he needed a prompt, "You're still standing there."

"I know, you didn't give me a tip."

"You want money?"

"No, I'll take a fry though."

"Okay, yeah, have as much as you want."

"Okay, great." He said, advancing further into the room and taking off his jacket, revealing the muscles that Rory told herself she only ever noticed by accident.

"What are you doing?" asked Rory, taken aback.

"Getting ready to eat." Jess said, as if it was obvious.

"You're staying?" Rory asked, feeling a hint of nervousness at the prospect of an evening alone with Jess. Alone.

"Didn't you just invite me?" he asked, with the confidence she was both annoyed and amused by.

"No, I-"

"No, you told me to have all I wanted. That sounded invitation-like."

"You wanna stay here and eat?"

"Beats being at Luke's."

"But..." Rory started, trying to find an excuse, any excuse that would get Jess – cute, well-read Jess – out of her kitchen, "you said you wanted quiet."

"Got enough quiet on the way over, besides it's cold out there and I'm hungry." He said, sitting down and pulling out some fries.

"But- okay, fine, if you wanna stay, stay, whatever." She said, giving into the part of her that felt alive whenever Jess was around, the part of her that wasn't screaming 'You've got a boyfriend! A boyfriend who you told not to come round tonight because you wanted to be alone!'

She took a seat next to Jess, grabbing the burger he'd just picked up out of his hands and taking a bite.

Jess chuckled, looking at the space where the burger had just been, "C'mon, Rory, is that really in the Star's Hollow code of conduct?"

Rory shrugged, grinning, "I thought the food was s'posed to be for me." She took another large bit out of the burger.

"Huh, guess you right." Jess said, with a mock pout, before grabbing the burger back.

"Hey!" Rory shot him a glare, "And don't joke about the Star's Hollow code of conduct, Taylor took a long time writing that."

Jess stared at her in disbelief, "Please tell me you're kidding, there can't actually be a- you're kidding, right?"

Rory just smirked at him, before taking one of his fries.

------

They'd lapsed into their usual banter, happily enjoying the food and each other's company, with the occasional lingering stare leading to a short silence usually broken by Rory. Jess knew Rory could have gotten rid of him if she wanted to, which put him in quite a good mood for a guy who'd been hit in the head by falling ceiling rubble at least six times earlier that day.

Then the phone call came.

Jess knew who it was immediately: Rory's surprised "Oh, hey," and the nervous darting of her eyes towards him told him that it was none of than Dean. 'Great,' he thought, 'there's one way to spoil an evening.' He rolled his eyes as he gathered from the snippets he could hear of what Rory was saying (she'd taken the phone into the hall) that the jolly green giant was on his way over. Jess was about to go over and put his coat on, sparing Rory the trouble of asking him to leave when a thought struck him: 'Maybe I can have a little fun with this.'

He was thinking this as Rory re-entered the room, worry written on her face as she grabbed his coat and held it up for him, "Wow, you know, I just noticed the time, and it's getting really late."

Jess looked down at his watch, "It's seven o'clock."

"I know but I- I have studying to do and...um, laundry."

"Who was on the phone?"

"No one."

"No one wouldn't happen to be heading over here right now, would he?"

"Jess..."

"Why don't you want him to see me here?"

Rory cast her gaze around, flustered, "You know why."

"We're just eating dinner."

"Jess, I'm asking you as a friend, just please leave now."

"You really want me to go?"

She paused, looked at him, "I really want to avoid a fight with Dean."

"Okay, I'm going." He said, allowing her to force his jacket onto him, smirking at the unnecessary contact.

"Thank you." She sighed, relieved.

Jess made an over dramatic stumble on his way out, "Ow!" he cried, "I think I just twisted my ankle, I better go lie down." He said, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice.

"Jess!" she cried, exasperated, then her expression turned to panic when the doorbell rang.

"D'you want me to get that?" Jess asked, casually, after a pause.

"Shhhh!" Rory said, snapping into action, "Just- just get in there!" she whispered, shoving Jess into her room and shutting the door before rushing to the front door.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves, putting on a smile as she opened the door, "Hey!" she said, trying to sound pleasantly surprised, leaning in for a quick peck.

"Hey, what's going on? I thought I heard voices." He said, coming in.

"Errr... that was just the um, TV."

"Okay..." he grinned, "I brought some ice cream, wanna go into the kitchen and have a bit?"

"Err...okay," she said, before remembering the Luke's food laid out there and the boy shut in the adjacent room, "No, wait!" she cried.

Dean looked at her, a confused frown on his face, "What?"

She quickly took hold of his arm and pulled him back towards the sofa, "Nothing, it's just the err...the couch is way comfier than the kitchen chairs, we can eat there."

"Okay, I guess we can- what was that?" a bang had just sounded from Rory's room.

Rory gasped, panic spreading through her, "N-nothing, a book probably just fell, that happens a lot."

He looked at her suspiciously, "Okay..."

She breathed a long sigh of relief.

There was a huge crash, followed by several others and a loud, "Ow!"

Dean shot up, heading straight for Rory's room, "Dean, wait, please, just-"

But he had already flung the door open, revealing a rather sheepish looking Jess, surrounded by a large pile of books on the floor. He looked up at Dean and waved sarcastically; Rory tried not to laugh.

Dean turned to Rory and said, through clenched teeth, "I thought you wanted to be _alone_ tonight."

-----

To be continued? Maybe? Not sure yet.

A/N: Sorry for all the lines taken from the show, I won't be errr..."borrowing" them anymore after this chapter. Please review and tell me what you think.


	2. Overnight Guests

There's The Rub

Summary: There's The Rub with a few...subtle differences: Paris never stayed and Dean arrived earlier than in the show.

A/N: So, I haven't thought about this story for ages, and I was flicking through my stories earlier and found it, and thought I'd try my best to carry on with it, hope you like it. Sorry if it sucks, I'm writing slightly out of my comfort zone.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Paranoid much?

_There was a huge crash, followed by several others and a loud, "Ow!"_

_Dean shot up, heading straight for Rory's room, "Dean, wait, please, just-"_

_But he had already flung the door open, revealing a rather sheepish looking Jess, surrounded by a large pile of books on the floor. He looked up at Dean and waved sarcastically; Rory tried not to laugh._

_Dean turned to Rory and said, through clenched teeth, "I thought you wanted to be _alone_ tonight."_

Jess watched with amusement and slight concern (for Rory, obviously; if the Jolly Green Giant happened to trip over and break his neck in his rage that wouldn't be _such_ a tragedy) as Dean stormed dramatically out of the room.

"Okay, stay _really_ still; I don't think he noticed me yet." Jess advised, sagely.

Rory glared at him, sparing a mortified glance at her books on the floor before following her enraged boyfriend out of the room.

Jess edged his way carefully around the scattered collection of books, well aware that damaging one of Rory's books was on a par with murdering a family member - it was the same for him. He followed them out tentatively, wondering how best to annoy Dean without getting Rory in any more trouble.

He found them in the kitchen; Rory was mid-explanation.

"-so, since he knew I was going to be on my own tonight – Luke that is, Luke is the one who knew – he sent Jess over with some food, in case I was hungry-"

"Which she was, if she was desperate enough to order _Indian food_." Jess chimed in.

"There is nothing wrong with Indian food!" Rory cried, exasperated, briefly forgetting the apology she was halfway through making.

"Do you want me to leave you two alone to finish this little discussion?" Dean asked, murderously.

"Well, if you wouldn't mind..." Jess began, before being shushed by Rory.

"Ignore him," Rory said, rolling her eyes, "as I was saying, he's only here because Luke asked him to bring over the food, since he knew my mom would be out of the town, and-"

"So Jess just brought this over, huh?" Dean asked, cutting her off.

"What?" Rory replied, clearly flustered (and looking very cute with it, Jess noted, silently).

"I know you eat pretty fast Rory, but this is a lot of food to put away in a couple of minutes!"

"Okay, so he didn't _just_ drop it off, but..."

"But what, Rory? You lied to me!" Dean cried, and Jess swore he just got about a foot taller.

"Okay, you caught us, this was our last meal before starting our new life together in New Jersey, we've been having an affair for a few months now, I'm surprised it took you this long to catch on, but then again..." Jess spoke up again, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

Rory shushed him again, and gave him a light whack on the shoulder, then turned back to Dean. Then, as an afterthought, she asked Jess, "New Jersey? _Really_?"

Jess shrugged, "It was the first place that came into my head."

By this time Jess could practically sense waves of fury emanating from Dean.

"Look, whatever is going on between you two, I don't want to be a part of it anymore." Dean stated, through gritted teeth.

"Man, you didn't actually believe me about the whole affair thing, did you?" Jess asked, incredulously, "Because, seriously, I'm starting to wonder how you are still in school..."

"Will you just shut up?!" Rory yelled, exasperated, following Dean who had decided to storm out yet _again_ (who knew he was such a one for dramatic exits), "Dean! I'm sorry, I didn't intend for this to-"

"But it did, didn't it?" he shouted, turning back around, "I'm serious, Rory, I can't do this anymore, it's over!"

"What? Dean, no, please, just hear me out, I-" Rory started, trying to get her words out, but Dean had already turned to leave once again, and this time she didn't follow.

Jess took a few tentative steps towards Rory, whose back was still turned to him, "Errr...Rory?"

He got a quiet sob for a response.

"Rory, are you okay?"

"What do _you_ think?" came a quiet, shaking voice, that Jess was not used to hearing coming from such a vibrant personality as Rory.

He advanced towards her a bit more, silently praying she'd just turn around so he could see her face, get some indication as to what she was thinking. Truth be told, he was feeling very guilty at the moment; he had never seen Rory cry before, and knowing that he was part of the cause – he didn't like it one bit.

"Look, Rory, I'm sorry, I-" he started, but he was cut off as she suddenly spun around.

"You what? Ruined everything?"

He stopped his movements towards her, stung by what she'd just said, and by how her clear, innocent blue eyes were swimming with unshed tears and were turned towards him, accusingly.

"What?" he asked, feeling more guilt, but a little bit of self-righteous anger as well.

"Everything was fine!" she cried, taking a few angry steps towards him, "My mom and I never fought, and when we did it was about which flavour ice cream we wanted to buy for movie night, I had the perfect, small-town boyfriend, and I never once stopped to consider his flaws. And then, you came along! And all of a sudden Mom and I are having the same fight again and again, the town is looking over my shoulder disapprovingly whenever I'm not with Dean, and Dean! All of sudden, I'm starting to notice things: like 'Hey, why doesn't Dean like to read?' or 'Hey, why can't Dean have a more similar taste in music to me?' or even 'Hey, why can't Dean write me amazingly insightful notes in the freaking margins?!'"

He stared at her bewildered, before voicing the only coherent thought going through his head, "And you're pinning this all on me?" he asked, quietly.

She softened somewhat, the tears now flowing freely from her eyes, "I'm sorry, I don't mean it, it's just...things were so much easier before-"

"Before what? Before I came and fucked up your precious little small-town life?"

This earned a gasp from Rory; she'd never actually heard Jess swear before, and never with such venom, especially not towards her.

"Didn't you ever think that maybe – just _maybe_ – it's you that's causing the problem? You're not happy with your perfect small-town life, and you're just using me as an excuse to admit to some independence from this town?" he growled, angrily, any guilt vanishing from his countenance.

"I- I don't know what I think anymore," she muttered, exhaustion getting the better of her. She sighed, "Look, maybe it would be better if you just left."

"With pleasure." Jess said, dryly, walking towards the door.

He had his hand on the handle when he heard her sobs from behind him. His anger vanished in a second and he was back next to her.

"Jess, what are you...?" she began, tearfully.

"Just be quiet, okay?" he said, gently placing an arm around her shoulder and guiding her towards her room.

Emotionally drained, Rory allowed herself to be led by the muscular arm around her as she Jess guided her into her bedroom, then down onto her bed. It was only when her head was on the pillow that she realised how tired she really was. As she slowly ambled towards unconsciousness, she became vaguely aware of footsteps. This unsettled her and, before settling into peaceful sleep, she managed to get out, "Stay! Please...stay..."

She heard a mumbled "Okay," and then the muffled sounds of someone dropping into the chair next to her bed, before sleep took over.

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The first thing that broke through Rory's heavy sleep was the sound of the shuffling of books.

As the events of the previous night replayed themselves briefly in her mind, she deduced that the person currently in her bedroom must be a certain town hoodlum. She fluttered her eyelids open, adjusting to the morning light, and looked over to see Jess, staring perplexedly at her collection of books.

"What are you doing" she asked, trying (and failing) to suppress a yawn.

Jess turned to her, confused, "I was _trying_ to put your books back in the right place, yet it's impossible to figure out how the hell these things are ordered. What is it? By genre? Year? What?"

Rory ignored his questions, her mind still feeling rather fuzzy, having just woken up, "I never asked, how did you actually manage to knock all those books off? Which, if I'm not mistaken, led to the rather disastrous events of last night." She asked, ignoring his question.

"Well, I was trying to grab Nineteen Eighty-Four off your shelf, then the shelf kinda collapsed, hence..." he gestured to the mess of books surrounding him. "Speaking of last night, you okay?"

"You mean about the dissolution of my just-under-two-year relationship?"

"Yeah, that."

"Trying not to think about it."

"Right." Jess said, relieved that the tension between them from the night before seemed to have evaporated overnight, "So, moving on, are you ever gonna tell me how the hell these books are arranged so that I can put them back? I've been staring at them for a half hour and still can't figure it out."

She grinned, "Autobiographically," she said, satisfaction in her tone.

"What, like in High Fidelity?"

"Yeah, that's where I got the idea from." Her smile widened, happy to have someone other than Lorelai being able to pick up on her obscure pop culture references.

"Huh."

She rolled her eyes, "I thought we'd gotten past all the huhs by now."

"From time to time they resurface; nostalgia and all that..."

Rory laughed, "It's true, there are times when they are missed."

"Thought so," Jess replied, smugly, "anyhow, I better get back to Luke's before he starts devising ways to have me killed for not showing up all night."

"Okay, I'll probably come by the diner later."

"See you there." Jess said, turning to leave.

"Uh, Jess?" she asked, tentatively.

"Yeah?" he turned back around.

"Thanks...for staying last night. I said some pretty bad things and I just...I was upset, I didn't mean any of it. I just, I really appreciate you being there for me."

"Anytime," he grinned, "hey, maybe sometime later, you'd wanna-"

"ROOORY! Fruit of my loins, light of my life, pride of my existence, I'm home!" Lorelai's voice called through, as she entered the house.

Rory immediately sat bolt upright, her eyes darting around the room, "You need to get out!" she whispered frantically to Jess.

"How? She's right out there!"

"Uh, hold on a minute, mom, I, uh, just woke up." Rory called out, giving an over-exaggerated yawn.

"Never be an actress." Jess said to her dryly.

"Oh no, all my future plans are crushed." She whispered back, sarcastically, "Quick, just go, uh...out the window!"

She quickly thrust the window open and started pushing him towards it.

He was only just out when Lorelai burst through the door, "Rory! I missed you! Do you know what it's like to be stuck in a spa with Emily? With no coffee? And cucumber in the water? Jeez, and that kid from the Shining thought he had it bad, I'd take Jack Nicholson any day..." she rambled, taking a seat on the edge of Rory's bed.

"Mom, I thought you were staying another night?"

"Yeah, but, as I said: Emily, no coffee, tofu, ugh." Lorelai paused and noticed her daughter's flustered expression, and then the open window, "Hey, what's up with you? Did you actually invite the bikers and lowlifes over? I knew there was some of me in you, after all!"

Rory laughed, nervously, "No, no, I'm just surprised, is all, I didn't expect you back so early."

"Right..." Lorelai said suspiciously, "And why's the window open?"

"The what?" Rory asked, innocently.

"The window, I thought you just woke up."

"Well, I didn't _just_ wake up, I woke up a little earlier and uh, I wanted some fresh air..."

"Okay." Lorelai said, glancing around the room, "One more thing: why is Jess' jacket on your chair?"

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A/N: Woah, that turned out way more angsty than I'd expected...sorry about that, I tried to keep it light, honest! I just thought, realistically, Rory would be pretty upset being dumped like that, and then it all kind of spiralled out of control from there. Hope you liked it, if not, please be kind, I haven't written in ages, and I'm just trying to get back into the swing of writing again.

Jay-La


	3. Market Eavesdropping

There's The Rub

Summary: There's The Rub with a few...subtle differences: Paris never stayed and Dean arrived earlier than in the show.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, feels nice to be writing again, hope I'm doing okay...

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Are these things really necessary?

"_Okay." Lorelai said, glancing around the room, "One more thing: why is Jess' jacket on your chair?"_

There were very few times that Rory Gilmore was at a loss as to what to say, but now was definitely one of them. The last time she had felt this acutely 'deer in the headlights'-y feeling was probably the morning after the dance at Chilton, when she'd fallen asleep with Dean at Miss Patty's, but this was worse. Rory knew her mother's feelings towards Jess all too well; she figured that finding Jess' jacket on her chair was on a par with finding Dean's boxers under her bed to Lorelai.

Lorelai's eerily calm voice cut through Rory's thoughts, "Why is it here, Rory?"

"Well..." Rory started, staring at her fingers as she twined and untwined them, nervously, "Jess brought a care package that Luke made for me last night."

"And, upon entering the house, he headed straight for you room, threw down his jacket and made good his escape out the conveniently open window? The nerve!"

"Mom, will you please hear me out before you get mad and jump to conclusions?" Rory asked, exasperated.

"_That_ was not getting mad and jumping to conclusions; that was me being cutely sarcastic while my daughter tries to explain why she is housing the jacket of a guy who's not even her guy. If I _was_ mad, you would be halfway to a convent right now. Explain away."

"He- he brought over my food – per Luke's request – and then kind of invited himself to dinner-"

"Well, I can see why you just _had_ to invite him into your room then..."

"And so we were eating dinner, then Dean came over, and he found Jess, and started to get really mad and he said- he said he couldn't do it anymore and we- and we broke up." Rory spoke numbly, trying to be void of emotion in order to get through the whole explanation whilst retaining her composure.

"You what?!" Lorelai exclaimed, an edge of sympathy now present in her voice.

"We broke up! Again! And- I dunno, I just- I didn't want to be alone; you were gone and I just wanted someone there. So I asked Jess to stay. And so he did, in the chair, far, _far_ away from the bed."

Lorelai's internal resolve crumbling, she took a seat next to Rory on the bed and put a comforting arm around her, before asking one of the many questions still floating around her head, "Why him?"

"What?" Rory asked, confused, "I said: I didn't want to be alone and he was just...there."

"But, you could have called me, you knew I would have taken any chance to escape the evil clutches of my mother, or called Lane's "secret" (from only her mother) cell phone and she would have been round here in less than three seconds. Why was Jess the one you wanted?"

Rory frowned, not altogether prepared for this line of questioning, "He was just here at the time, and-"

"Yeah, but-" Lorelai tried to interject.

"But nothing, I don't want to talk about this anymore." Rory said, climbing out of bed, "Can we just get breakfast and forget all about my horrible, horrible night?"

Lorelai nodded, "Okay, if that's what you want, fine."

"Thank you." Rory said, walking to the kitchen, before quickly turning back to Lorelai, "Mom?"

"Yeah, hun?"

"Are we okay?"

"Yeah, we'll be fine. It'll just take a little time to get over thinking my darling little girl was deflowered by the town hoodlum."

Rory made a disgusted face, turning back around to start getting out some pop tarts, "Do you have to say 'deflowered'? And you said you didn't jump to any conclusions!"

"It wasn't a conclusion, it was just one of the many possibilities flying around my pretty, little brain upon seeing his jacket in your room." She paused for a second, "And would you rather I used more colourful language than 'deflowered'?"

"On second thought, deflowered is just fine."

"That's my girl," Lorelai grinned, grabbing a pop tart, "and I better be scoring major cool points here! Not once did I voice my concern of said deflowering before hearing an explanation, nor did I threaten the life of said hoodlum!"

"Said daughter is very grateful." Rory quipped, happy to be on lighter terms with her mother.

Lorelai paused for a minute, before asking, "So he was a perfect gentleman the whole night?"

"Well I was asleep for most of the night, so who knows? Maybe he pawned all of your jewellery, broke the fancy china AND made some long distance phone calls, we'll never know."

"Okay, Miss Sarcastic, but when the phone bills come in, he will be my number one suspect." Beat. "And since when do we have fancy china?"

"Since you started using the word 'deflower'?"

"Touché." Lorelai conceded, before asking, "Do I get one more question?"

"At the risk of losing some of your cool points, yes."

"How are you? In light of recent events relating to a certain tall, floppy-haired male."

"Well, I haven't really had a chance to think about it. I was kind of overwhelmed last night by the shock of it, it all seemed really sudden and huge, and I was pretty much unconscious as soon as my head made contact with my pillow. Then, this morning, Jess was here, and then you were freaking out, and I still haven't really had a chance to come to grips with how I'm feeling. It's weird, last night I felt so awful and today it's just...numb. I'm beginning to see that this has been a long time coming - I mean, not many people stick with their first boyfriend for their whole life..."

"Okay," Lorelai cut her off, "I can see that you're confused..."

"You can tell?" Rory deadpanned.

"Hey, I hear confusion goes great with coffee! How about it? Luke's? Plus, I hear there's a certain hoodlum there who likes to steal jewellery and make long distance phone calls..."

"Coffee sounds good."

"Okay, then, to Luke's!"

"To Luke's." Rory agreed.

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

"Oh Luke!" Lorelai cried, entering the diner with Rory in tow, "I need enough coffee to make up for a day of tofu, cucumber-water, Emily and no caffeine, stat!"

Luke rolled his eyes, pouring each woman a cup and setting them down on the table, "Since I don't think I actually have that amount of coffee on the premises, this'll have to do."

Lorelai scrutinised her cup carefully, while Rory grinned at her mother's antics, "I suppose this'll do. But keep 'em comin'!"

"Hey, Luke," Rory grabbed his attention before he went off to serve someone else, "I just wanted to say thank you for the care package, that was really nice of you."

Luke looked at her blankly, "What care package?"

Rory was cut off before she could say anything else, "Hey, Luke, I think Taylor's trying to put a sign up on your window..." came Jess' voice from counter.

Luke's attention was immediately drawn to Taylor, who was, indeed, standing outside looking too overly casual to_ not _be doing something to annoy Luke. He stormed over to Taylor, muttering vague profanities interspersed with various 'Dammit, Taylor's.

Lorelai turned to face her daughter, "That was weird."

"Yeah, it was." Said Rory, looking over at Jess, who had returned to reading at the counter; the picture of nonchalance, "I'm gonna go order, you want anything?"

"Enough pancakes to clog a couple of arteries?"

"Done." Rory said, walking up to the counter, looking expectantly at Jess.

"Can I help you with something?" he said at last, putting his book down.

"Huh. Looks like Luke didn't know anything about the care package."

"You wanna order?"

"Which is kinda strange considering it was he who supposedly prepared it."

"Y'know, we're pretty busy today, you better decide what you want fast, God forbid a Gilmore go hungry."

"You're squirming, I've never seen you squirm. It's entertaining."

"Well, I s'pose we could always give you a salad."

"Not gonna answer me, are ya?"

"Something nice and healthy for a change?"

"Okay, I give. Two stacks of pancakes, please." Rory relented, then added, "And let me know if you're ready to engage in actual conversation, instead of the one-sided ones you're so fond of."

"Will do."

Rory walked back to her table, chuckling quietly to herself at his stubbornness about admitting to actually doing a nice thing.

"So you're all done, then?" Lorelai asked when she sat back down.

"Yup, pancakes are on their way."

"No, I meant with the flirting with diner boy over there." Lorelai corrected, a mischievous glint in her eye.

Rory rolled her eyes, "I was _not_ flirting."

"Whatever," Lorelai said, casually, "just seems to take you an awful long time to order some pancakes."

"As opposed to the time it takes you to order when Luke's here..."

Lorelai narrowed her eyes, suspiciously, "What are you saying."

"Nothing," Rory replied, smirking as she mimicked Lorelai's calm expression of before, "just seems you spend a lot more time talking to him than his other customers do."

"Okay," Lorelai started, relenting, "can we play nice again?"

Rory laughed, "Just 'cos you know I'm right."

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Dean was _not_ having a good morning. He felt heartbroken and somewhat betrayed after his break-up with Rory last night and, on top of that, he kept getting the weirdest looks from townspeople. They were mainly sympathetic, with hints of incredulity at times, and I wasn't happy about it. Of course it could be paranoia, but you never could be certain in this town. It was for this reason that he was skulking behind an aisle in Doose's Market, trying to hear what Patty and Babette were talking about, in the hopes that it would give him a clue as to why he had been attracting so many looks today. Surely they had not found out about the break-up already?

"Haven't you heard?" he heard Babette say to Patty, "Maury saw him this morning, walking out of the house, bold as brass!"

"No!" Dean heard Miss Patty exclaim in disbelief, "Mind you, I don't blame the girl, you just have to look at the boy to, well... But, really, it's cruel to string the other poor boy along like this..."

"_And_, Maury told me, he was wearing the same clothes we saw him in last night, bringing her all that food!"

"Well, who would have thought it of Rory, _our_ Rory? And with _Jess_?" Miss Patty asked, rhetorically.

At this point, Dean understood everything clearly. Everything from why he'd been getting the strange looks that morning to why Rory had always been so defensive over her friendship with Jess. But how long had this been going on for behind his back? Or did she just take the first opportunity after the break-up to- to...

He refused to even think about it. He needed answers, and he needed them now. He stormed out from behind the aisle, startling Babette and Miss Patty, who immediately tried to appear as if they were doing nothing more than innocently browsing the shelves. He didn't stop, and continued straight out of the market, the conversation he had just heard replaying over and over in his head, until he saw Rory walking back from Luke's with her mother and made an angry beeline towards her.

Dean was _definitely_ not having a good morning.

A/N: Ugh. I feel like I did really badly with that chapter but it did _not_ want to be written. I'm sorry if it was rushed or OOC, but please have mercy on a poor, sleep-deprived, homework-ridden writer who has spent sooo long this week just staring at an empty document. I'll give you a cookie? Promise it'll get better soon, I just had to get this out of the way before I could start having some fun writing. Apologies again, and thanks if you've made it this far in the story,

Jay-La52

PS: I _should_ be updating about once a week (at the weekend), but if my teachers are particularly demonic on particular weeks and set me tonnes of homework, it'll probably slip into once every two weeks.


	4. SmallTown Confusion

There's The Rub

Summary: There's The Rub with a few...subtle differences: Paris never stayed and Dean arrived earlier than in the show.

A/N: Sorry it's been a while, guys, but thanks so much for all the positive reviews, they really mean lot. Anyway, if you read my A/N that I posted earlier (which I'll have probably taken down by now), you'll know why I've been away for a while. So, I'm not going to ask you not to be too hard on me _again_ because I think I've done that every time so far, so be as hard on me as you like, it's completely my fault if it's bad since I've neglected this fic for ages. Anyway, here goes, wish me luck.

Disclaimer: Still own nothing, not even Tom. Just in case you were wondering.

Rory was really tired of feeling confused by now.

First off, there was her and Dean's first break-up, which had confused her enough as it was, what with first wondering whether she reciprocated his feelings, then wondering how to tell him so. Then, after they got back together, things were simple again, easy; it was pleasant, if a little boring. And then, all of sudden, comes along this book-reading, leather-wearing, sarcastic, witty, attractive "hoodlum" (as named by Taylor) and everything got confusing again.

Suddenly 'pleasant' wasn't good enough anymore, suddenly she found herself yearning after words like 'unpredictable', 'exciting' or even just 'fun'. Words that she'd always thought she'd identified with, before experiencing their meanings first hand. She supposed it was unfair to say that; she _had_ had fun with Dean, and she _had_ loved him. It was only after _he_ came along that things started to change, and she started to question feelings that she had always thought of as secure and untouchable.

Anyway, all of this had led her to where she was now: standing, with her mother, watching bemusedly as an angry, hurt looking Dean charged towards her.

She quickly glanced towards her mom, who looked just as surprised as she was; considering the way they'd avoided each other after the last break-up, this was the last thing Rory thought he'd do. _He must have a good reason_, she thought to herself, bracing herself for whatever was to come.

When he finally reached them, he just stood there for a minute, a mixture of rage and betrayal seeming to emanate from him. Rory flinched back a bit, instinctively. It wasn't that she was frightened; it was more of an overwhelming sense of guilt, really. She still did genuinely care for Dean, and she didn't like seeing him like this, and the thought that it was her that had done this to him conjured up a bad taste in her mouth.

After what seemed like an eternity, Dean finally spoke, "How long?" he asked, quietly, trying to keep his temper under control.

Yet more confusion clouded Rory's eyes. "What?" She asked, honestly not knowing what she'd done, this time.

"How long has this..._thing,_" he spat the word out, "being going on between you and Jess? Has it been a while now? Or did you just take the your first opportunity after we broke up to- to-"

Before he could finish, Lorelai cut him off, "Woah there, I'd be a bit less forthcoming with the accusations, there, Hanns Scharff!"

Rory winced at Lorelai's (failed) attempt to lighten the mood, finding it difficult to tear her eyes away from Dean's.

"Please, Rory, I just need to know, how long?" It sounded strange, hearing something that was essentially a plead said in a tone of such carefully controlled anger.

Rory took a deep breath, trying to sound as sincere as possible, despite a slight feeling of indignation at the things he was implying she'd done, "Dean, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

At this Dean couldn't take it anymore: not only had she...he couldn't even think it; but not only that, but now she had the audacity to deny it? This was too much. He let go of all the restraint he'd been trying to exercise, and everything came out in one fell swoop.

"Really? So Jess just happened to stay over at your place last night without your knowledge?" he let out angrily, watching as her expression began to sink into a mixture of realisation and horror, "And then it just so _happened_ that he emerged from your place wearing the same clothes that he was wearing the night before?"

Rory stood there in shock, a thousand thoughts flitting through her head. How did he _know_? If he knew, who else did? The whole town? Had news of this supposed liaison reached the diner yet? Oh God, how would Luke react?

Rory stood there, unable to do anything but gape blankly at Dean, who took this to mean that his assumptions were correct.

"How could you, Rory? How _could_ you?" He asked, betrayal showing through his anger now, "I thought you were different, I liked you _because_ you were different! But no, it turns out that you're just like every other girl out there! But the thing that gets me is that you couldn't wait a month, a week, even a _day_ after we broke up to just- just jump into bed with Jess!"

At this, Rory found her voice again, "Dean, I _swear_, nothing happened! I was upset, I didn't want to be alone, and-"

"_I didn't want to be alone_," he repeated, "isn't that what they all say, though? Anything so that you don't have to face up to what you did! It's just so ironic: I go through our whole relationship, never pushing you, never expecting anything, and then the second we broke up, all that crap about wanting to _wait_ no longer applies! It just shows what ou relationship meant to you."

Rory shook her head, starting to get rather angry, "Don't you dare accuse me of that, of not caring about us or our relationship, because I did, okay? I did! And I've already told you: nothing happened! I was upset, I asked him to stay just so I wouldn't have to be alone, then a few seconds - literally, seconds! - after that I fell asleep! He slept in the _chair_, okay? He was being a good friend! Just because you could never accept that I would want to be just friends with another guy doesn't make me into some kind of slut, so do _not_ accuse me of that!"

Dean just stared at her, his anger dissolving into nothing but hurt. She couldn't tell whether this was because he didn't believe her, or just because of the fact that this is all that came of a relationship that used to be so nice, so innocent.

Lorelai broke into Rory's thoughts, saying quietly, "Dean, I think it would be best if you left now." And Rory was suddenly very glad that her mom had noticed Jess' jacket earlier, so that she'd been able to explain everything to her _before_ this little incident.

Dean paused a minute and, taking one last look at Rory, turned back around and walked back to Doose's, looking deflated.

Lorelai turned to Rory, "You okay?"

Rory let out a humourless laugh, "What do you think?"

Her mother gave her a sympathetic smile, "How about we get you home? How does ice cream and some movies sound? A bit of a wallow, maybe?"

Rory smiled at her mother's efforts, "Maybe later," she agreed, "I think I better head to the diner now, and just hope that this "news" hasn't reached there yet."

Lorelai nodded, "Want me to come with you?"

"No, I think I'll be okay." Rory said with a sigh, "See you at home?"

"Okay. Good luck, hun." Lorelai said, offering a small, reassuring smile, before turning away to head back home.

Rory sighed, and started to head back to the diner, praying to whatever God there was that Taylor hadn't found out yet.

* * *

Jess clenched his fists, glaring at the man in front of him in the ridiculous sweater. Seriously, it's as if he only owned one piece of clothing, which he insisted on charging around the town annoying people in.

He had come in shortly after Rory left.

After she'd left the diner, Jess – assuming that he'd have no one else of any interest to talk to for the rest of his shift – had pulled out his book, which he'd been absorbed in when the aforementioned man had charged in.

"Jess, if you don't mind, I'd like a word with you." He'd said, severely, obviously trying to sound intimidating.

Naturally, Jess had completely disregarded his existence, hoping he'd go away.

"Jess? Hello?" He pressed, frustrating edging into his voice.

No such luck.

Rolling his eyes, exaggeratedly, Jess put his book to one side and cast his gaze – trying to muster up as much scorn as he could – onto Taylor.

"Yes?" He said, hoping that this would be a brief visit.

"I'd like to discuss the rumours that have been currently circulating around town." Jess could tell he was trying to sound professional to mask the natural indignant tone that his voice took on. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes a second time.

"And what rumours would those be, Taylor?" He asked, wondering what the hell these imagination-starved townsfolk had thought up this time.

At this, Taylor dropped all pretence of civility, "The fact that you don't even know about the event to which I'm referring proves my point!"

"That's funny, Taylor, I wasn't aware that you had a point."

At this point, Kirk decided to chime in, "He's talking about the rumours about you and Rory. You know, the ones saying that you spent at the night at her house last night. As to what you were doing, one can only make an educated guess; personally, I've seen it coming a long time, the way you two-"

"Okay, that's enough, Kirk!" Taylor interrupted, frustrated.

Jess frowned, actually beginning to take this conversation seriously for the first time, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know full well what I'm talking about, young man, and I'll have you know I won't stand for it! Don't think that you can just march in here and corrupt a perfectly innocent young girl, I won't have it!" Taylor announced, puffing his chest out.

"Corrupt?" Jess repeated, bemused, "I repeat: what the hell are you talking about?!"

At this point, an extremely embarrassed looking Rory burst through the door, looking from Jess, then to Kirk, then to Taylor, flustered.

"Care to explain what's going?" Jess asked her, tiring of the situation.

"Well, err...basically, someone must have seen you coming out of my place this morning-"

"Wearing the same clothes as the night before." Kirk added, not so helpfully.

Rory continued, looking even more embarrassed, "I dunno who saw...probably Babette or Mory...but the point is, the whole town seems think that we..."

"Had sex." Kirk finished, after Rory had broken off, causing her to blush more than she was doing already. Jess couldn't help but smirk.

"You did what?!"

Unnoticed by all of them, Luke had emerged from behind the curtain, obviously picking up on the most recent part of the conversation.

"Oh, God..." Rory said, wondering how this situation could get any worse.

"I'm surprised you hadn't heard by now," Kirk said to Luke, "practically the whole town knows – even Tom!"

"That's right!" Tom called over from where he was working.

"And you didn't think to say anything?!" Luke asked, looking at Kirk, Taylor and Tom.

Tom shrugged, "I was staying out of your way in case you found out I hit the water-line again..."

Luke turned to Kirk and Taylor, before taking in what Tom had just said and turning back to him, angrily, "You did what?!"

"Gentleman!" Taylor exclaimed, "You're ignoring the situation at hand! This- this _hoodlum_ has defiled Rory!"

At this point, despite everything: her embarrassment, the horror of this whole situation, Rory couldn't help but laugh.

Jess took the opportunity while the whole party was distracted to say, "Look, there is no "situation at hand", okay? All that happened was me and Rory were hanging out as _friends_, and we both fell asleep, so you can all just put your crazed little small-town minds at rest!"

Rory shot him a thankful look for not mentioning her breaking up with Dean, she didn't think she could handle anymore drama today.

Luke looked from Jess to Rory, "Is that the truth?"

"Yes!" They exclaimed, simultaneously.

"Nothing happened?" Taylor asked, suspiciously.

"No!" They said again, in unison.

"Well, okay then..." Taylor said, making an obvious attempt to try to regain his dignity, "I'll just, um, be going then..."

He turned back around, slowly walking out, casting one last wary look over his shoulder at Jess, who waved at him, sarcastically.

Rory turned to Kirk, "Will you try to spread the word that nothing happened?"

Kirk nodded, dutifully, "Right, I'm on it," He said, getting up immediately, walking out into the street, shouting "Rory and Jess didn't have sex!" repeatedly.

At this point Rory couldn't take it anymore, she collapsed onto the seat by the counter, laughing, almost forgetting all that had happened that day.

Luke just shared an incredulous look with Jess before returning to his previous occupation: yelling at Tom.

"This is a crazy, _crazy_ town." Jess said, shaking his head, disbelievingly.

Rory, regaining her breath, managed to say, "Oh, come on, admit it: living here is fun!"

Jess gave in and let out a short laugh, "Well, it definitely scores points for unpredictability." He amended, "You staying for a cup of coffee?" He asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

Rory shook her head, somewhat regretfully, "Nahh, I better get back, my mom's waiting for me. Hopefully there won't be any more people in here harassing you, today."

"I think I can handle it. I mean, what could be worse than Taylor?"

Rory shrugged, getting up, a teasing grin on her face, "I dunno," she warned, gravely, as she started to leave, "I'd watch out for Miss Patty."

She stayed just long enough to see a brief look of dread cross Jess' face, before stepping out, watching amusedly as Kirk went from person to person, informing them of the change of events. It was funny: despite all that had happened the night before, Rory left the diner not feeling half as bad as she felt she should.

A/N: Okay, that's it for now, hope you liked it! Sorry if there's any typos – I usually write on my laptop keyboard, but it's broken, so I have to use this really old one, and they keys are much heavier than I'm used to, so I hope I didn't miss any letters or words out. I'm not too sure about this chapter, to be honest particularly the first half, but oh well, hope you enjoyed it, all the same, though I can't help thinking that it's _extremely_ OOC...

Oh, and by the way, for those of you who don't know Hanns Scharff is, he's this famous interrogator person. To be honest, I just felt I should have a reference in there, so I just typed into Google 'Famous interrogators' and he was what it came up with. I figured, if Lorelai can put 'Il Duce' into her every day conversation, Hanns can go in there, as well.


	5. Dead Uncles and Flirtation

**There's The Rub**

**Summary: There's The Rub with a few...subtle differences: Paris never stayed and Dean arrived earlier than in the show.**

**A/N: Thank you to my great beta, Eupa. Whose channel you should totally check out, by the way. Especially if you like Sherlock Holmes, the Bartimaeus Trilogy, Harry Potter, Yes Prime Minister or Merlin. Anyhoo, on with the story.**

**Disclaimer: Well, if I did own anything related to Gilmore Girls, then this would be how it happened, wouldn't it? And since it's pretty obvious that it didn't happen this way I think we can safely conclude that I own nothing.**

**

* * *

**

The next few days had passed relatively calmly. As soon as Rory got home, Lorelai had demanded to know exactly what had happened, down to Kirk's running into the street, proclaiming what had _not_ happened the previous night. This, of course, amused the elder Gilmore to no end, and the younger couldn't help but to join in with her laughter as well because – let's face it – the whole scene had been rather ridiculous.

"He seriously shouted it out to passersby?" Lorelai had asked, once she's gotten over the initial bout of laughter.

"It's Kirk – are you really that surprised?" Rory had replied, and her mother couldn't help but agree with that.

A few more typical days of school, entailing the usual school-related activities: Franklin meetings, Paris melt-downs and a heavy workload, interspersed with daily trips to the diner, where Rory enjoyed the conversation of a certain dark-haired employee (conversation was what Rory referred to it as; Lorelai called it flirting). Anyway, it was at the weekend that Lorelai had got the phone call while at work, and arrived home with the news that Luke's uncle had died, and she was going to go and see if there was anything she could do to help over at the diner. Rory, being Rory, immediately dropped her homework and joined her mother in helping Luke.

Which is how she ended up working alongside the previously mentioned brunette. Though, she mused, she couldn't really call what he was doing _working_ since, for around the fifth time that day, he was happily ensconced in a book.

"Having fun?" She asked him, sarcastically, as she leaned against the counter next to where he sat.

"Yup." He replied, succinctly.

Unrelenting, she pressed on, "You know, you're actually supposed to be working." No response. "Working meaning walking around, taking orders, serving tables, that kinda thing."

"Huh, so that's what I'm s'posed to have been doing here the last six months, who knew?" He said, bluntly, not looking up from his book.

"Okay, that's it." Rory said, grabbing the book off him, ignoring the agitated "Hey!" she got in response, and shoving the coffee pot into his hand for the second time that day, "Look: people," she gestured to the customers, "you: serve," she mimed pouring out a cup of coffee, "Now."

"Jeez, when did you get so bossy?" He asked, playfully.

"Well, you need some kind of driving force to save you from your slacker tendencies." Rory replied.

"Hey, I'm not complaining, it's a new side to you. I like it." He said, smirking, as he observed the way her cheeks slightly coloured at that.

Unable to come up with a reply, Rory once again gestured to the customers, impatiently.

Jess sighed as he got up, "Yeah, I got it: take orders, serve tables, I'm on it." He said before making his way out from behind the counter.

Rory's eyes followed him for a minute, a small grin playing on her face, before she was called over by a customer and reluctantly tore her gaze away.

* * *

Guilt. This used to be quite a foreign concept to Jess, something he'd outgrown long ago, when he'd started to not care what his mother and whoever she was with that week thought about him, because he'd come to the realisation that his mother wasn't exactly perfect, herself. But now he recognised the feeling that was gnawing absent-mindedly at the edge of his consciousness. He blamed this godforsaken town; back when his whole being exuded 'I-don't-give-a-damn' such an emotion as guilt would have never bothered him in the slightest. But now it was fairly obvious that there were people that he did give a damn about and, along with that realisation, came the guilt.

He'd never felt guilty about bailing on work at the diner before, but this time he did feel kinda bad, knowing that Luke was probably swamped with funeral arrangements and hungry customers at that very moment. But still, he had to get out; if he had to spend any more minutes in the same room as Kirk then he might just kill himself. Or Kirk. Or the whole damn town.

He relished in the silence of the deserted school basket ball courts, as he watched the ball drop through the hoop, making a satisfying _clink_ against the edge before succumbing to gravity.

"You're good, you know; you should try out for the team."

He turned around to see Rory standing in the open door to the court, looking a bit amused, but at the same time severe. He let out a dry chuckle, "Yeah, 'cause I just scream 'team sports.'" Beat. "How'd you know I was here?"

"I asked Luke," she replied, "and I was kinda sceptical at first, I didn't know you played."

"Now and again, back in New York." He said, as he threw the ball effortlessly through the hoop again, "So I'm guessing you're here to summon me back to the diner?"

"You guess right." She replied, "You coming or am I actually going to have to drag you?"

Jess responded by throwing the basketball back up at the hoop.

Rory rolled her eyes, "Don't say that I didn't warn you," she said, walking up to him and grabbing him by the sleeve.

Despite his various complaints, she could sense the smirk he wore on his face as they continued the walk back the diner. Neither of them noticed that she was still holding onto his sleeve by the time they'd arrived.

* * *

"Well, that was entertaining." Rory remarked, as the town meeting came to a close and Taylor, having embarrassed himself by picking a fight with the new vegetable guy, walked off indignantly.

"I'm still waiting for the day when Taylor actually starts to cry at one of these things." Lorelai replied, turning to Luke, "Will you work on that for me?"

"I'll get right on it." Luke said, dryly.

"Heading back to the diner?" Rory asked.

"Yeah, I just need to talk to Taylor first." Luke sighed, annoyed already at the prospect of such a conversation.

"You know I wasn't serious about the whole crying thing." Lorelai said.

Luke rolled his eyes, "I just need to arrange the whole war re-enactor thing."

"Oh," Lorelai said, "you need me to close up then?"

"No, it's fine, I'll just do it after." Luke replied, not wanting her to go to any more trouble.

"You need me to close up, then?"

"Are you going to keep asking until I agree?"

"You need me to close up, then?" Lorelai repeated a second time, stubbornly.

Luke sighed, "Fine, go ahead." He said, and then added, "Thank you."

Lorelai shot him a sincere smile, "No problem," she turned to Rory, "you coming?"

"Err...I think I'll meet you at home," Rory replied, looking at the empty seat where Jess had been during the meeting, annoyed that he'd managed to slip off unnoticed, escaping all work at the diner _again_.

"Okay, see ya there." Lorelai said, offering her a smile before getting up to go to the diner.

Rory got up, starting to walk home, when she was grasped by a sudden sense of restlessness. Grabbing her book out of her bag, she turned around, heading for the only place where she knew she'd either get some peace in which to read or the company of the only other person who didn't mind joining her in a companionable silence while she did so. When she arrived, she grinned as she found the case to be the latter.

She sank down beside Jess, who'd offered her a brief "Hey," before returning to his book. She allowed her legs to dangle over the edge as she tilted her head slightly to read the title of his book.

"Ugh, Hemmingway. Is that all you read?"

He rolled his eyes, "I just felt like reading something that I know to be good since a lot of modern literature just sucks."

"Fair enough." She replied, pulling out her own book.

"'How To Be Good'?"

"It's Nick Hornby. You mentioned High Fidelity the other day and I realised this was the only book of his I hadn't read, so here I am."

"Huh." Was the only response she got before they both turned back to their own books, contented with nothing but the novels they were enveloped in, and the presence of one another.

* * *

It was only when she'd reached the end of her book that Rory realised how long she must have spent there. She glanced at her watch, gasping in shock when she saw that it was approaching midnight.

"Jess," she said, urgently, "I've got to go – have you seen the time?"

Jess glanced at his own watch, and replied with a typical, casual, "Huh."

Ignoring him, Rory stood up, checking she still had everything, before turning to leave.

Jess rolled his eyes, "Hold on a sec." He said, reluctantly putting away his book and getting up to follow her.

"You didn't have to come." Rory said, unable to keep a grin off her face.

Jess shrugged, "Yeah, well, it's dark. And, knowing your co-ordination skills, you'd probably walk into a tree or something."

"In that case, thank God I have such a heroic, upstanding citizen by my side." She said, sarcasm evident in her voice.

"Yup, who knows what would happen if I wasn't around – you know the sort of crime takes place in _Stars Hollow_." He replied, equally sarcastic.

"Won't Luke be wondering where you are?"

"I think he either doesn't care or is used to it by now."

As they continued to walk, Rory started to wish she'd brought a coat with her; it was freezing and she still had the walk back to her house from the diner to undergo.

When they reached the diner, Jess wasn't surprised to find the door unlocked; no one ever locked their doors in this eerily "perfect" town.

"I guess I'll see you around, then." He said, turning to face her.

"Y-yeah, b-b-bye." She said, shivering.

Concern briefly clouded his eyes, "Rory, you're shaking."

Rory shrugged, "I'm f-fine, r-really!" She said, trying to sound convincing.

Jess rolled his eyes, grabbing her arm, and guiding her gently into the diner, "Just come upstairs for a minute, you can borrow a coat or something, you can't walk home while turning into an icicle."

Rory didn't have the energy to resist, and allowed herself to be led upstairs, where she took a seat on his bed, still shivering, as he looked around for a coat.

"You really don't h-have to." She protested feebly, finding herself growing slightly drowsy as she realised how nicely warm it was in the diner.

"Yeah, sure, I'll just send you back out there to freeze to death." Jess replied, "God, there's got to be something around here somewhere..."

"Hmmm," Rory replied, vaguely, as she found herself lying back slowly onto Jess' bed. It was very comfy, really, and it had the added bonus of carrying Jess' scent, which made her lean back further into it.

Jess emerged from a cupboard, coat in hand, to find an unconscious Rory on his bed. He found he couldn't quite bring himself to wake her, sleeping so peacefully as she was. He took the chance to sit down by her and observe her freely for once, relishing in her soft, peach complexion, and the delicate features of her face.

Almost without noticing, Jess found himself drifting into the realm of unconsciousness, himself, and slowly shifted so he was lying down next to the girl that his dreams tended to revolve around, draping a tentative arm across her waist.

* * *

Luke had taken a long walk around Stars Hollow after his discussion with Taylor and the rest of the idiotic war re-enactors, trying to get himself into a state that could be called calm. Trying and failing.

The thought of ending up like Louie haunted him, so he walked further, his mind wandering with him, moving onto to more pleasant subjects. Well, one subject in particular stuck in his thoughts, and that was of the caffeine-addicted woman who was in his thoughts as often as she was in his diner, saying witty quips while pining for coffee.

These thoughts, too, he shrugged off, disregarding them as pointless. He'd watched Lorelai flit through several men in her time in Stars Hollow and there was one consistency between all of them: they weren't him.

Abandoning his train of thought, he headed back to the diner, hoping that Jess wouldn't be playing some ridiculously loud "death music" (as Luke referred to it). He was surprised at how long he'd been gone when he noticed that it was half past midnight, but he disregarded this thought and headed upstairs, looking forward to getting some sleep before the funeral the next day.

When he opened the door and saw Jess and Rory, the first thing that came into his head was rage towards the former, and protectiveness towards the latter. He regarded Rory as his own daughter and seeing her curled up, asleep, next to his nephew, well...it didn't exactly bode well with him.

He was half tempted to slam the door and watch them jump apart, but he thought he should probably go and call Lorelai, she'd know what to do. It was then that he actually noticed their expressions. Rory just looked completely at peace, with a slight smile toying on her face and Jess looked...happy, calm. It was strange, seeing a person that Luke usually found synonymous with anger and sarcasm looking so purely at rest.

Luke sighed. He was exhausted, and they weren't exactly causing any harm. He slowly made his way over to his bed, trying not to make any noise, and then collapsed onto it, the annoyance of the funeral planning, the arguing with Taylor and the general strain of the day ensuring that he fell asleep immediately.

* * *

**A/N: Hmmm. Not too thrilled with this chapter either, but I think I'm coming to terms with the act that I'll probably never be pleased with my own work, that's just me. Anyway, I hope you didn't think it was as awkward and OOC as I did.**


	6. The Morning After

**There's The Rub**

**Summary: There's The Rub with a few...subtle differences: Paris never stayed and Dean arrived earlier than in the show.**

**A/N: Okay, I think I owe whoever is still reading this an apology. A big, long, grovelling apology. Especially since so many of you have reviewed! (Which I'm overwhelmingly appreciative of, by the way). I have never had so many reviews for a fic, and getting them really does motivate me to write more. I know that doesn't really sound very good after having not updated in around 5 months, but that's all down to exams of the "Big-Important-Future-Defining" variety. Speaking of which, are there any fellow Year 11s out there doing GCSEs? Anyway, I only have 2 or 3 left, and they'll be done by Friday, so hopefully I'll be able to update more frequently soon.**

**Disclaimer: I've got nothing, can't you see me baby, look into my eyes, see I'm acting crazy...(If anyone recognised those lyrics, then you have very good taste in Youtubers). God, even my disclaimers are plagiarised...

* * *

**

For the first time in living memory, Jess awoke feeling fully rested.

Growing up with Liz, interrupted nights had been fairly routine. There was her either yelling at the boyfriend of that week, crashing through the apartment in the early hours of the morning, having drunk too much or helping herself to a 'nightcap' at home, getting sentimental and maternal and waking Jess up to reassure herself that she was a good mother (despite the various pieces of contrasting evidence).

Then, as he grew up, and he couldn't bring himself to go back to whatever mess Liz had concocted for herself, he'd slept outside; benches, bus shelters, anywhere where he could lie down. Nights of doing this had taught him to go into a sort of paranoid half-sleep, able to jerk awake if anyone approached. This was a habit he'd still not managed to escape; even in Stars Hollow, a town where there was less crime than there were people that enjoyed Taylor's company and, even then, what little crime existed in Stars Hollow was generally carried out by Jess, anyway.

But, that morning, a calmness had settled over Jess that only came with the presence of the girl lying next to him. His eyes drifted open slowly and settled on the sleeping brunette in front of him, tracing her features and carving her contented expression firmly into his memory before she would wake up and, inevitably, freak out within three seconds.

When she began to stir, he started the countdown in his head, waiting for realisation to kick in.

Three...

Blue eyes connected with brown as her eyes fluttered open slowly, clouding with confusion.

Two...

Her cheeks coloured slightly as she realised into whose eyes she was staring.

One...

She gasped, jerking bolt upright, "Oh my God!"

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

"Oh my God!" she repeated, "I fell asleep! How did I fall asleep? And my mom – Oh my God, my mom!"

"My, aren't we feeling religious today?" He deadpanned.

She inwardly cursed him for his perennial calm demeanour, before continuing to panic, "Oh God, she's going to kill me- no, wait, she's going to kill _you_, then me, then anyone in the near vicinity, probably..." She jumped off the bed, "I've got to go."

"Yup," he agreed, reluctantly, "would probably be best to avert a mass killing spree."

Rory turned to him, flustered, "So, thank you for the, um...coat offer, very...chivalrous..." _Chivalrous? Really? _She chastised herself inwardly, "So, thank you, and...I gotta go."

With that, she bolted, leaving Jess half amused with her embarrassed reaction to the previous night's sleeping arrangement, half frustrated with the sudden exit. This, coupled with the knowledge that he was bound to receive a lecture from his uncle caused him to flop back down on the bed with an aggravated sigh.

* * *

Coming downstairs, already partly mortified by her awkward display back there, Rory drew the curtain to feel the bottom of her stomach drop out completely as the eyes of every customer in the diner turned to her.

Under different circumstances (circumstances where she wasn't the one being gawked at) she would have found the various expressions of shock on the faces of her fellow townspeople quite funny. However, on this occasion, they only served to heighten the urgency with which she needed to explain the situation to Lorelai. Kirk had dropped the sandwich he'd been eating, and looked torn between having an aneurism and asking Luke for a refund for the now floor-bound meal, Taylor was emanating disapproval and the sentiment of 'if-only-she'd-listened-to-me' and Miss Patty was trying to shoot her a (not so discrete) wink. For the second time that day, Rory darted towards the exit, burying her feelings of embarrassment and a sick sense of déjà-vu beneath one solid aim: getting to her mother before the town could.

* * *

For the first – and hopefully only – time in her life, Rory found herself regretting never doing anything of an active, gym-like nature during her entire schooling career. As the air tore out of her in quick staccato breaths, she made a mental note to join a gym (a mental note that was immediately brushed into one of the abandoned crevices of her mind, never to be found again). Only sheer determination mixed with the memory of her mother's face when she'd arrived home after her night in Miss Patty's drove her forward.

As she leaned against the front door, panting heavily, she reflected on the slight irony of this situation having managed to repeat itself. Really, she thought, it's the fault of her inconsistent sleeping habits. Her mother had gotten her accustomed to falling asleep on the sofa after movie marathons, or even the floor when Lorelai had demanded the whole sofa for herself. So, _really_, (she pulled out her key) she was blameless in the situation, a victim of her mother's example to sleep wherever positioned. She opened the door.

All thoughts froze in her head as an icy anxiety spread through her body; Lorelai was at the kitchen table, a look of forced, empty, suffocating calm set firmly on her face. A fleeting thought passed through Rory's head that this anger and hurt masked with sinister serenity was somewhat reminiscent of her Grandmother. She quickly dismissed this thought, knowing that such observations were hardly going to endear her to her mother at that point.

"Oh, home then? I thought you'd run off to join the circus." Lorelai said, her acid tone causing her vague attempt at humour to fall flat.

"I'm so, so sorry, mom," Rory began, "I was just with Jess and it got late, so we went back, and it was cold, so he said he'd give me a coat, and then- I dunno, I must have just fallen asleep, it was nothing."

The calm look stayed stubbornly in place, "And how exactly do you get from coat borrowing to unconsciousness?"

Rory faltered, "I- I dunno, it was just warm up there, and I was tired and it smelled like him and-"

"It _smelled_ like him?"

Rory back-tracked, realising what she'd said too late, "I didn't mean that, I just- look, it was nothing, I fell asleep, that's it."

"And Jess didn't think to wake you up?"

Rory paused again, not having thought about this, "I dunno, he must have just fallen asleep, too-"

"What? So he was searching for a coat and spontaneously dropped to the ground?"

"No, he was on the bed, too-"

"Oh, great, Jess on the bed, you and Jess on the bed, I feel so much better!" Lorelai snapped, all sense of calm vanishing from her voice.

"It was nothing, okay? Now can we just drop it?"

Lorelai carried on, as if Rory hadn't spoke, "God, why am I surprised? I mean, God, think Lorelai, you know by now that if your daughter does something extremely uncharacteristic, it'll be with Jess!"

"That's so unfair! How is it his fault anymore than it is mine? You act as though he sedated me as part of some kind of evil master plan!"

"I wouldn't put it past the little punk..."

"Just stop it! It was nothing!"

"Oh, it was nothing, it was nothing, that's the fourth time you've said that, who are you trying to convince?"

Rory sighed, deflated, "Can we please just forget about this?"

"No Rory, we cannot just forget about it! Have you got any idea what it's like to wake up to an empty house? Do you know how many scenarios flashed through my head? And all because of who? Jess! Dance around it as much as you want, but this is the second time you've fallen asleep with the guy, and when you're not locked in conversation with him at the counter, you're sneaking not-so-subtle glances at him across the diner. Call it nothing all you like, deny it to me, deny it to yourself, but, no matter how much I hoped that it would, this thing with you and Jess is not going away!"

"What thing? There is no thing! We're friends! You understand? Friends, friends," she repeated, her voice weakening each time she said it, ending with a last, weak, "friends."

Lorelai was about to reply, when something clicked in her head, causing her to ask, "Wait, you fell asleep in Luke's apartment?"

"Yes."

"And Luke was in the diner this morning?"

"Yes."

"So then Luke slept in the apartment that night, as well?"

"Yeah, I guess, so, but-"

"I have to go." Lorelai said, a steely expression taking over her features.

"Mom?"

"We'll talk about this later, but right now, I have _got_ to go."

"Mom, are you- are we gonna be okay?"

Lorelai let out a sigh, allowing her expression to soften as her panic and hurt towards her daughter began to drain out of her, leaving numbness and exhaustion in their wake, "Yeah, we're gonna be fine, kiddo, you just scared me is all."

"I'm sorry. Really, really sorry." Rory repeated.

"It's okay. But boy, we really have to get this narcolepsy issue dealt with; crossing the road could get extremely hazardous."

Rory grinned, happy that Lorelai's good humour had appeared to have made a return, "I'll call a doctor immediately." She paused, "Thanks, mom."

Lorelai offered her a small smile, before turning to leave, "I'll be back soon, okay?"

"Where are you-?"

Lorelai cut her off, "I'll be back soon."

She walked out of the house, making a determined beeline for Luke's.

* * *

"Luke!" Lorelai called, charging into the diner. After looking around, and being unable to find the man in question, she mustered all the politeness she could, and marched over to her current least favourite person on the planet.

"Where's bigger, unshaven, marginally less scary you?"

Jess smirked, biting back the sarcastic remark that had immediately sprung to his mind, knowing that she'd want to kill him after the events of earlier, and pointing to the room behind him, "Stock room."

Lorelai gave him one curt nod, before marching into the stockroom, grabbing Luke by the arm, and dragging him upstairs.

"Lorelai, I've got customers- What are you-?" He began, as Lorelai pulled him into his apartment, shutting the door behind them.

"You didn't think to call and tell me that my daughter wouldn't be coming home last night?" She asked, trying again to keep her voice in the vague realm of calm.

Luke avoided eye contact, looking guilty, "I figured Rory would have told you, she doesn't generally stay out all night without your consent."

"Exactly! She doesn't! And do you know why she was? It's the same reason why a guy who's only ever been good to her broke up with her – your nephew! And do you really think I would have consented to her spending the night with that walking felony?"

"'Walking felony'? Now you're just starting to sound like your mother..." Luke bit back, resenting her constant attacks on Jess.

Lorelai narrowed her eyes at him, "You're seriously comparing me to my mother? You didn't tell me that my daughter was spending the night with your nephew and now you're comparing me to my mother? Et tu, Brute?"

"I'm just saying, you're constantly attacking that kid, and how much do you even know about him?"

"I know he fights, he smokes, he steals beers out of my fridge and he manages to lure my daughter up here in the dead of night..."

"Oh, come on! You know what? They looked happy together, both of them! And that's because Rory's one of the only people that'll give that kid a chance, why can't you?"

"Because I know guys like Jess, and while my daughter may be temporarily blinded by the unpredictability and the book-reading and the meticulously-gelled hair, but I know better, I know that he is not headed anywhere good, and I do not want Rory headed there with him."

"For God's sake, Lorelai, yes, he's got an attitude, yes, he's got a smart mouth, and yes, he is a general pain in my ass, but he's not Satan!"

"Wanna bet?"

"And Rory seems to handle him just fine on her own- hell, she's Rory, she could handle Adolf just fine on her own-"

"Nuh-uh, Rory would never go for a guy with a moustache." Lorelai said, more quietly, slightly mollified by the praise of her daughter.

"My point is, Rory can take care of herself."

"You still should have told me."

"I'm sorry. Do you think I was happy seeing them up here together? I wanted to kill him, march the punk straight onto a bus back to Manhattan, but Rory just looked happy. And, I dunno, I know she was upset after the break up with Dean, and I just wanted to keep her happy."

Lorelai listened to this, a small smile growing on her face, as her ager dissipated, to be replaced with fondness for the man in front of her, the man who cared so much for her and her daughter.

"Are you gonna yell at me some more, or-?"

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up." Lorelai said and, before she could change her mind, pulled her to him, pressing her lips to his.

* * *

Rory had found $3.14 in change stuffed down the back of various pieces of furniture, re-organised her entire closet, then her mother's (who was sure to thank her for it in the morning when she reached in, intending to pull out a work outfit and coming out with her 'Porn Star' T-Shirt), cleaned the living room and alphabetised the take-out menus. She was running out of things to take her mind off what her mother had said.

_This thing with you and Jess is not going away!_

That sentence and the speech to which it belonged reverberated around her head as she tried to concentrate on a novel, a TV show, a movie. No, it seemed like anything from which she derived the slightest bit of enjoyment allowed her mind to wander straight back to _him_. So, instead, she cleaned.

She didn't even know why she was still fighting it (what it was she was fighting she refused to put a name to), it wasn't like she had a boyfriend anymore. Dean had always acted as a barrier in her mind, a blockade that allowed her to escape from any new, foreign thoughts or feelings. But now the flood gates were open, and her mind was full of margin notes, lingering stares and the smell of old cigarettes. Yet she still shunned them. Somewhere in the back of her mind, that tiny, terrified voice of reason that had urged her not to reply to Dean's 'I love you' was screaming _'This guy has the power to hurt you, get out!'_

Her failed attempts at not thinking about him were interrupted by a knock on the door. She opened it to reveal him, a manifestation of all her suppressed thoughts standing on her porch.

"What are you doing here?"

"Hello to you, too." He replied, smirking.

"Hi. What are you doing here?"

"Seeking refuge."

"From what?"

"Luke and Lorelai."

She winced, "Are they fighting?"

"Worse."

"They've actually come to physical blows?"

"You could call it that..." Jess sighed, "They're...kissing."

Rory imagined she must have had a cartoon-like expression as her eyes widened in shock, "They're what? Are you sure? You didn't mistake my Mom for I dunno...Kirk or someone?"

Jess looked at her, sceptically, "You think Luke's more likely to be making out with Kirk than with Lorelai?"

"Well, you never know, there's been many a slow afternoon where it's just been just him and Kirk in that diner..." She joked, before saying, "But, seriously, my mom and Luke? This is...wow, this is weird. Good weird, I think."

"Oh yeah? You weren't the one that had to see them." Jess grimaced.

"Jess, you're 17, you'd have thought you'd have grown out of the whole 'Ew, kissing is gross' thing." Rory chuckled.

Jess rolled his eyes, "Fine, you picture it: Luke and your mom, go ahead."

"Oh, God, make it stop!"

"See my point?"

Rory looked at him with mock-sympathy, "Well, you've obviously been through a great deal of trauma, you better come in." She said, stepping aside to let him in.

She followed him into the living room and took a seat next to him on the sofa.

"So, what happened, exactly?" Rory asked, still trying to absorb the news.

"Your mom came into the diner, pulled Luke upstairs, they yelled at each other for a while, then it went silent, I went upstairs to check she hadn't bludgeoned him to death with a spatula, and there they were."

"Wow."

"I know."

"No, I mean: wow, I think that's the most I've ever heard you say."

"Post traumatic stress, it'll pass."

"Wait, so you interrupted them?"

"Nope, they didn't notice me."

"Seriously?"

"Yup, Luke must be one hell of a kisser to distract your mother from the tingling of loathing and daughter-preservation she feels whenever I walk into a room."

"Ew, don't say that! I'm still trying to get the earlier image out of my head!"

Jess let out a rare chuckle, "Sorry."

Rory sighed, "Still, this has kinda been a long time coming."

"Yup, they've been dancing around each other for a while now."

"Inevitable, really."

"Maybe, if they'd had the guts to do something about it earlier, they'd have been happier for a while now."

Rory frowned slightly, realising that they were actually quite close, knee to knee, just a few more inches and she could- "Yeah, but, maybe they're right to have been cautious, I mean, they could just end up hurting each other."

"Yeah, but if they never gave it a chance, they'd never know what they were missing. Maybe it's worth it."

"But what if it isn't?" She asked, unconsciously moving toward him.

"Who can tell if you don't try?" He challenged, his face slowly moving towards hers.

"Are we still talking about mom and-" Rory started, but she was cut off by Jess' lips on hers.

Doubt was immediately wiped from her mind as she responded, wrapping her arms around his neck as his snaked around her back, pulling her as close as she could get to him. Screw it, she thought, as the kiss deepened, his tongue skimming her bottom lip before she eagerly granted it access, this was worth it, this was so, so-

They jumped apart as there was a knock on the door. Rory's face immediately coloured, as she jumped up to get the door, still blushing furiously as she reached for the door handle. Once again, her eyes widened in shock as she saw who it was that'd interrupted them.

"Dean, what are you doing here?"

* * *

**A/N: Oh God, oh God, oh God, I can't write Luke. Or Jess. Or anyone. This happens whenever I come back from a writing hiatus: I get incredibly insecure about OOC-ness, and how rushed things seemed, etc. Even more so than usual. Please, please, please review to either put my mind at rest or confirm my doubts, just so I can stop obsessing. Please?**

**Reference: In case you don't get the 'Et tu, Brute?' thing, it's Caesar's words when he sees Brutus among the group of people to kill him in Shakespeare's **_**Julius Caesar**_**, basically expressing betrayal. I know most of you will probably already know that, so I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, it's just in case you don't get it.**


	7. Dealing With It

**A/N: Okay, so now that all of my exams are happily over with I'm free to do a lot more writing, which **_**should**_** mean more frequent updates. However, don't hold me to that, because I'm really enjoying writing my other fic (How Soon Is Now, check it out if you want), so I'll probably alternate between writing chapters for the two stories. Thanks as usual for all the great support, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. I wonder how many times I've typed that in my life now. Oh, and some lines of this chapter are taken from the actual show, and are the property of Amy Sherman-Palladino, yadda, yadda, yadda.**

* * *

"_Dean, what are you doing here?"_

Throughout the various ups and downs of their former relationship, Rory had always been, to some degree, happy to see Dean. But, under the present circumstances (or any circumstances that involved her having been recently glued to Jess Mariano), Dean was probably the last person in the world she wanted to talk to, barring an axe-wielding psychopath. Or maybe Kirk.

"I just...I wanna talk," he said, looking slightly uncomfortable, "can I come in?"

Rory hesitated, trying to think coherently while still recalling the feel of Jess' lips on hers, "I think it'd be best if you said what you have to say out here."

Dean looked a bit surprised, and seemed to deflate in confidence slightly before continuing, "First of all, I'm sorry for what I said the other day, I was completely out of line, I guess the idea just kinda threw me..."

"Um, thanks, that's nice of you," Rory replied, trying not to sound too distracted as she attempted to discreetly sneak a glance over her shoulder.

Dean picked up on this, asking, "Is this a bad time? Have you got company?"

Rory weighed up the options, deciding lying would probably be for the best, in order to keep Dean from getting angry, so as to be able to speed up his departure, "Nope, just me. Was there anything else you wanted to-?"

He cut her off, "I think I made a huge mistake breaking up with you like that. I miss you, every day, in fact, and I promise to trust you completely from now on, if you say there's nothing between you and Jess, I believe you."

At this point, Rory, who'd been frozen in surprise, regained her powers of speech in order to get out a feeble, "What?" before adding, "You want to get back together?"

"If you're willing to give us another shot."

At that moment, Rory jumped slightly as she heard the back door slam shut, a sense of panic rising within her as she realised who'd just left, causing her to say, perhaps a bit more sharply than she'd intended, "I think you'd better go, Dean."

She immediately felt guilty, as hurt clouded his eyes, and he almost seemed to shrink in disappointment, "Won't you think about it? I love you, Rory, and I just want things to go back to how they were before."

"Before what?"

"Just...before," he said, evasively, not wanting to put a name to what (or who) had triggered the deterioration of their relationship.

Rory struggled to find the right words, without hurting him any further, "I think...I think it was for the best, what happened between us. What we had, it was great, but I think it's time to move on, both of us."

Dean stepped back, stung and, for the first time in that conversation, allowed a bit of bitterness to creep into his tone, "Does this mean you're with _him_, then?"

Rory briefly thought that she wished she knew the answer, herself, before saying, "No, but the fact that that's what your mind immediately jumps to shows that we wouldn't work. I'm sorry Dean, I do really care about you, please believe that."

He offered her a small, dejected smile before backing away down her driveway. Rory closed her door, turning to lean back against it with a sigh. She walked back over to the couch, sinking into it and dropping her head into her hands, wishing she could have handled that better. Now, she'd deeply hurt a boy that had only ever been good for her, and allowed Jess to walk off, probably pissed, thinking that she was, at this moment, in the middle of a happy reunion with the former.

The sound of the door opening tore into her thoughts as her mother rushed in, looking happier than she'd been for a long time. She stopped in front of Rory, let out a long exhalation, and said, "I think I'm dating Luke."

Rory sucked in a breath, putting aside her own trepidation about what had just happened in order to celebrate what really was great news for her mother.

"You what?" She asked, trying to sound surprised, knowing that her mother wouldn't appreciate her having been told before she was able to share the news, herself.

"I'm dating Luke," Lorelai repeated, before continuing, "I think. Well, he kissed me- no, I kissed him, but he kissed me back, and then he asked me to dinner and I said yes and...I don't know, does that constitute dating Luke? I have no idea, I never picked up the 'Luke dating' handbook, but from the collaborative evidence, I guess I'd assume that-"

"Okay, slow down, still absorbing here," Rory said, almost amused by her mother's flustered state.

"Right," Lorelai replied, exhaling deeply again, "so, what do you think?"

"About you and Luke?"

"No, about Brad and Jen. Of course about me and Luke!"

"I think it's great! I'm happy for you guys- you're happy, right?"

Lorelai grinned, allowing all sense of anxiety to be replaced with warm contentedness, "Yeah, kid, I'm happy. Really happy."

"So long as you know that, should anything happen with you two, I'm not sneaking out coffee for you."

"Pessimist," Lorelai said, sticking her tongue out.

"My mother, fountain of all maturity." Rory stated, before asking, "So, when are these dinner plans for?"

"Tomorrow night, speaking of which, can you do me an itty bitty favour?"

"No."

"But you don't know what it is."

"Ah, but I know you, and your itty bitty favours are usually huge favours that I have no inclination to do, but you guilty trip me into doing anyway."

"But you won't mind this one! It involves that diner boy of yours!"

Rory blushed slightly at the mention of Jess after what had happened earlier, looking down at the floor.

"Don't you want to know what it is?"

"The answer is still a resounding no."

"But you'll have the chance to do that flirty thing you do at the counter," she said, putting on a high pitched voice in an effort to sound like her daughter, "'Oh, Jess, what are you _reading _at the moment?'"

Rory's blush deepened as she glared at her mother, "One: I sound nothing like that, and two: having a discussion about literary tastes is not flirting."

"It is the way you do it."

"Mom!"

"Okay, okay, just trying to be supportive of this thing between you and Jess."

"There is no thing between me and Jess. And, after this afternoon, I doubt there will ever be," she let out accidentally, as she let her mind wander to what he must think after overhearing Dean.

"Okay, once you've agreed to the favour, we are so coming back to that last comment of yours."

Rory sighed, giving in, "What is this favour, then?"

"Well, as you know, I'm going to dinner with Luke tomorrow night."

"Yes, we've been over that point."

"Well, Luke was wondering if that night, you could, um, tutor Jess."

"What? Jess is the last person who needs tutoring," Rory said, immediately alarmed at the prospect of seeing him again so soon.

"Yeah, well, Luke said that he hasn't been attending classes, and his principal is concerned, and..."

"But there's nothing I can teach him that he doesn't already know."

"I know, but Luke seems to think that you'll motivate him, or something, he seemed really keen on the idea, I didn't want to disappoint him, I can tell him no if you really don't want to do it..." her mother trailed off, looking at her daughter, expectantly.

Rory sighed, her loyalty to Luke trumping whatever awkwardness she felt towards Jess, "Fine, I'll do it. The diner tomorrow night?"

"Err, about that, I was wondering if you could possibly do it here, considering it's me and Luke's first date and all, it might be nice if the apartment above the diner was free, in case-"

"Uh, uh, uh!" Rory cut her off, "Do not finish that sentence!"

"How do you know that I wasn't going to finish it with 'in case we want to play a game of _Scrabble_ afterwards'?"

Rory raised her eyebrows, sceptically, "Was that how you were going to end that sentence?"

"Depends what meanings you attach to 'playing a game of _Scrabble_'."

"Stop! My ears are bleeding!"

"Fine, fine. So you'll do it then?"

"If you promise to throw out our box of _Scrabble_, then yes."

"Honey, you and your anal vocabulary were the only reason we kept that game in the first place."

"Well, my anal vocabulary and I are going to bed, night Mom," Rory said, getting up to leave.

"No, no, wait a minute!" Lorelai called to her daughter's retreating back, causing her to turn around, "What was that you were saying earlier about how you and Jess would never be a thing after this afternoon?"

"Um, nothing, just a slip of the tongue is all, I'll see you in the morning," Rory said, making a swift exit before her mother had time to press the issue.

Rory knew she'd end up telling her mother eventually, but at the moment she quite liked the fact that the kiss was her thing, hers and Jess' and, God, it'd been some kiss. The preceding events, however, she could definitely have done without.

As her head sunk into the pillow, more insecurities started to take over as she thought about Jess' abrupt departure earlier. What if he genuinely thought that the kiss didn't mean anything to her, and that she'd jump at the chance to reconcile with Dean just minutes later? Or, worse still, what if the kiss hadn't meant anything to him? He could have easily just been caught up in the moment and done so without fully considering the ramifications, he was the type to be spontaneous and unpredictable – two of the many qualities that attracted her to him – and it could have just been spur of the moment and meaningless to him. She could have been mistaking genuine affection for her for boredom and a fondness for messing with Dean and, now it appeared that Dean had won, maybe he'd just give up this game.

Trying desperately not to over-analyse the situation, Rory put her thoughts at rest by making a firm resolution: act as though nothing had happened. If he did genuinely care for her, he could be the one to bring it up. And, if her suspicions were correct, and he wasn't actually interested in anything more than her friendship, then, well, she'd just have to deal with that.

* * *

Dean Forrester was quickly becoming the bane of Jess' existence.

Whereas before, he'd just been a floppy haired, overly tall – annoyingly so, in Jess' opinion – jock, who Jess enjoyed mentally torturing, he was now a floppy haired, overly tall obstacle between him and Rory, and one that it was proving impossible to overcome. Of course Rory would go back to that idiot if given the choice, and he hadn't felt like sticking around to listen to this happen. It was probably stupid for him to entertain the thought that such an intelligent, beautiful, and completely _good_ person as Rory could ever consider being with someone like him. Someone that her mother, her grandparents and her precious town would never approve of. No, she would perennially fall back into the arms of the reliable, safe moron, who appeased her mother, went to dinner with her grandparents and was seen as her perfect match in the eyes of the town.

Still, he thought, for a second, during that kiss, it seemed like- but never mind, the fact that she'd, in all likelihood, ran straight back into the arms of Dean moments later proved that anything he'd felt in that heavenly moment was purely out of his imagination. He knew how it'd be now, her avoiding him and blushing furiously whenever forced into his proximity, avoiding the subject at all costs now that she was reunited with her beloved. Well, he sure as hell wouldn't be the one to bring it up just so that he could hear about the happy reunion. If friendship was all she wanted from him, then, well, he'd just have to deal with that.

* * *

Rory fidgeted with her sleeves as her mother got ready for her date with Luke, knowing that she was going to have to deal with her own problems soon enough.

"That's it! I'm burning all my clothes!" Came the voice of her mother, from deep within her closet.

"Great, show up naked; I'm sure Luke would love that."

"You jest, but the thought has entered my mind several times now."

"Well, if all else fails, you can always where your 'Porn Star' t-shirt."

"Oh, because that'll make me come across just peachily."

"I don't think 'peachily' is a word," Rory said, continuing, "and the t-shirt is slightly more conservative than the sheer nakedness you were considering. Besides, what are you talking about? This is Luke, you're not exactly making a first impression."

Lorelai's head emerged from her closet, "This is not Luke-Luke, this is Dating-Luke, and Dating-Luke has not yet been introduced to Dating-Lorelai, and if Dating-Lorelai cannot find the appropriate outfit, than Dating-Luke will hate her and the world will be cast into a pit of agony and despair."

"So, I see you're not overreacting at all."

"You know I've never been one to be dramatic."

"Yes, that is your reputation." Rory replied, before sighing and joining her mother in the closet, "Okay, wear your black skirt, because it's cute and will look great with your new strappy heels. Match it with the strappy blue top, because it's warm out and the top is light, and the blue will bring out the colour of the pretty, pretty eyes that you were so gracious in passing down to me."

Lorelai gaped at her, "How did you-? With the- and the- how?"

Rory laughed at her mother's astonishment, "I hope your ability to formulate sentences comes back before Luke gets here."

"I have given birth to a fashion genius!"

"Look at that, we've found my back-up major if the whole journalism thing doesn't work out, now go! Change!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Lorelai said, grabbing the outfit as Rory left the room.

A half hour later, Lorelai was changed, makeup and hair done, quickly running around the house to try to locate her keys before giving up just as the knock at the door came. Rory snuck a peak from the couch as Lorelai smiled widely, opening the door to Luke who, after some only slightly nervous conversation in the doorway, led her mother to his car. Rory smiled, happy that her mother was finally with someone who she could fully depend on, before letting her inevitable anxiety take over as she remembered who'd be next to come to the door.

As promised (although fifteen minutes late), there was another knock at the door, and Rory took a moment to brace herself, before getting up and answering it. And there he was, looking as infuriatingly at ease with the situation as always.

"Hey," she said, hoping that soon she'd be able to look at him without the kiss replaying over and over in her mind by the end of the evening.

"Hey," was the succinct reply that she received.

"Do you wanna, uh, come in?" She asked, turning to let him past, longing for the ease of conversation that they'd had just yesterday.

He didn't reply, instead just brushing past her into the living room and taking a seat on the couch. Trying not to draw anymore parallels with the afternoon before, she took a seat next to him.

"Wait," she said with a slight frown, "where are your books?"

He looked around him, as though only just noticing their absence himself, "Huh, guess I forget 'em. What a shame."

"Jess, where are your books?"

"The cat ate them."

Rory sighed, getting up and heading towards her room, "Never mind, we'll use mine."

"You sure I can handle all that fancy school knowledge?"

She smirked slightly, glad that they seemed to be falling back into their usual rhythm, "I think you should just about be able to keep up. I can't imagine you having trouble with literature, so math?"

"Math, sure. Or," he said, drawing out the word, "we could go for ice cream."

"Ice cream?"

"Yup. Having seen you eat for the last few months, I'm not going to believe you if you say you're not hungry."

"Ah, but we have ice cream."

"Yeah, but do you have cones?"

"Cones?"

"I need cones," he said with a solemnity that almost made her laugh.

"You do realise this is the Gilmore household that you stepped into? Of course we have cones. We have every kind of candy under the sun."

"In that case, what's the problem?"

She eyed him, suspiciously, "If I go get us ice cream now, you'll be a perfect student the rest of the night?"

"Yup."

"I could not believe you less," she said, but getting up and going towards the kitchen, none-the-less, "come on, I'll get the ice cream out, you grab your precious cones."

He followed her into the kitchen and started to dig around in a cupboard to find the cones and being confronted with what was, indeed, every kind of candy under the sun, "God, you weren't lying earlier, how are you not dead yet?"

Rory turned from getting the ice cream to see him gaping at their bounty of snacks, "We made a deal with the devil. Mom figured eternal suffering and torment at the hands of Satan was worth it for Red Vines, but only if her suite in Hell comes with a Jacuzzi."

"You know, if I keep looking at this, I think I actually might be sick."

"Then you'd miss the ice cream, not to mention the _cones_."

"Good point."

* * *

After having overcome the initial awkwardness, they continued to fall into their usual pattern, Rory eventually being persuaded into putting a movie on, mainly because trying to teach him anything (most of which he already knew anyway, rendering her completely redundant) was like ramming your head repeatedly against the wall. Although things were kept relatively light between them, the events of the day before still hung in the air, but neither brought it up due to a mixture of insecurity and sheer stubbornness on both parts.

When Lorelai snuck in at around eight in the morning, she was confronted with the sight of two sleeping teenagers half-sitting, half-lying on her couch, Rory's head laid on Jess' chest, while his arm was slung around her waist. Mainly due to her own tiredness, and because she was still determined to prove to Rory that she was okay with whatever or whoever would make her happy (despite what she really felt on the matter), Lorelai chose to leave them where they were, tiptoeing upstairs to snatch a few minutes of sleep before her alarm would ring for her to go to the inn.

* * *

**A/N: So, please review and whatnot. Even though I've probably frustrated you all by making Rory and Jess two of the most stubborn, oblivious people in the world, you can still review and tell me how much you want to kill me.**


	8. Halfway Home

**A/N: Okay, so I wrote this in Corfu, where people are pretty lax about alcohol serving ages so, if this sucks, blame the Greeks and their Ouzo cocktails. I'm still jetlagged and I'm semi-hypnotised from repeatedly listening to tracks from 'A Very Potter Sequel', which is probably not the best frame of mind to be in when editing a chapter that you weren't happy with in the first place, but oh well, what's done is done. Sorry sorry sorry for all the lines that I've taken from the show in this chapter, I promise this is the last time.**

**Oh, and by the way, next chapter is the last one, other than the epilogue which will follow, so the end is in sight! Thanks so much to people who've stuck with this fic throughout, and especially to those who review consistently, it's you who keep me writing! Anyway, enjoy, I hope...**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. In fact, I know nothing, like Manuel in Fawlty Towers. Halfway Home is a song by TV On the Radio, and has no real connection to this chapter, but is the name because it's what I happened to be listening to when I wrote the chapter title.

* * *

**

A few weeks had passed since what Rory considered a completely failed attempt at tutoring. However, while the evening hadn't done much to further Jess' enthusiasm for school, it had fully succeeded in putting their friendship back on track, a fact which Rory observed with a mixture of relief and dissatisfaction. It was as though their kiss had never happened, and she sometimes wondered whether she'd just made up the whole thing and was, in fact, going insane. Or, and more likely, the kiss had just been one of Jess' impulsive, unpredictable actions which meant nothing to him and he probably regretted by now. This theory was backed up by the fact that she'd woken up alone the morning after the tutoring session, Jess having manoeuvred himself off the sofa and out the door sometime in between her mother arriving back from Luke's and Rory waking up. She rather wished he could have done so before her mother had arrived home because, having seen that they'd fallen asleep in each other's company for the third time, Lorelai had spent the past few weeks mocking her.

"Is he really _that_ dull a conversationalist?" Lorelai asked Rory for the hundredth time, as they walked towards Luke's.

As per routine, Rory rolled her eyes, replying, "It's been weeks, mother, you'd think you'd have gotten past this hilarious topic."

"Ah, you obvious don't know the rules of mockery, young grasshopper. Rule thirty-two, sub-section b, article four clearly states that the mockery should be in proportion to the event being mocked, and this particular event has happened one, two, three times," Lorelai said, counting the numbers on her fingers as she said so, "and therefore warrants triple the amount of mockery."

"See, _that's_ what they should be teaching me at Chilton!" Rory exclaimed, sarcastically.

"Speaking of Chilton, you're driving there, aren't you? Are you sure that's wise? I mean, it's a long journey, I wouldn't want you falling asleep at the wheel."

"Enough!"

"Fine," Lorelai said, trying to put as much childlike disappointment into that word as possible. "I should just be happy that you've managed to stay awake throughout this entire conversation, anyway."

"Changing the subject in three, two..."

"I'm free from business school!" Lorelai said, grasping onto the first topic that came to mind.

"Nice subject change," Rory replied, approvingly.

"Do you know what this means? I can do anything I want! Hey, feel like jetting off to Japan and starting a girl band?"

"Sure," Rory replied. "Except we'd have to fly back every day for school and the inn, and on Friday nights for dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, and the inn usually needs you at weekends anyway, so..."

"So we'll be a Japanese girl band during the hour a week that I would have spent in my business class," Lorelai finished for her.

"Sounds like a plan," Rory said, as they entered the diner.

They headed for the counter, Lorelai leaning over to give Luke a quick peck on the lips before demanding, "Coffee, please. Ooh, and pancakes!"

"We're out of pancakes," Luke replied, somewhat amused by the expressions of complete horror on both Gilmores' faces.

"No pancakes?" Rory asked, only partly feigning the shock in her voice.

"How can this be?" Lorelai said, her tone matching her daughter's.

"Isn't there some kind of law against this?"

"It says firmly in the ten commandments: Luke's must always hold pancakes."

"We're out of pancakes," Luke repeated.

"Are you sure there's not one or two hiding in the back? I could make it worth your while," Lorelai said, giving Luke an obvious wink.

"We're out of pancakes," was again what she got in reply.

"Sleeping with you is getting me nothing."

"You mean it doesn't give me the power to produce pancakes as if from nowhere?"

"Exactly," Lorelai replied. "Fine, just give us some eggs."

"Coming up."

"Kiss?" Lorelai asked, and Luke leaned over the counter and gave her a slightly longer kiss before leaving to serve some other customers.

"Aw, you two are so nauseating," Rory mock-crooned.

"Hey, I put up with you and Dean's cutesy-cutesiness for over a year," Lorelai said, before noticing Rory's slight change in demeanour. "Have you spoken to him since...?"

"Um, yeah, actually," Rory said, eyes flitting nervously towards Jess, who'd been reading a little way off when they came in, to see if he was listening. Ascertaining that he wasn't, she continued, "He came over the other week."

"And you're telling me this now? Dish!"

"Dish? Since when are we in a sorority?"

"Nuh-uh, no distracting me: talk."

"Well, he came over and, um, asked me to get back together with him," Rory said, eyes glued to her breakfast.

"Just like that?"

"Yup, and it kinda threw me for a bit. Anyway, I told him no, of course."

"Of course?" Lorelai repeated, frowning slightly, "You seemed pretty broken up just after you'd broken up."

"Yeah, but the more I think about it, the more I think that we just weren't that compatible. It'd be nice to be able to talk to someone about books and music and have, you know, shared interests, and I just didn't have that with him."

"Well, it sounds like you made the right decision, then," Lorelai replied, carefully, knowing that Rory was likely to be defensive if she brought up the guy to whom her eyes kept darting. The boy who hadn't actually turned a page of the book which he was supposedly so engrossed in since Rory and Lorelai had entered the diner.

"Anyway," Rory began, desperate for a new subject, "your graduation's tonight! What do you want for a present?"

"Oh, you know, nothing big, Geronimo's rifle, Marilyn's shampoo, and – "

"Benny Goodman's corset and pen," Rory finished quoting for her. "Now are you going to give me any serious suggestions or just keep quoting Sheryl Crow at me?"

"You don't have to get me anything," Lorelai replied, stubbornly.

"Try and stop me," Rory said, equally stubborn. "Anyway, I've got school, see you up there all capped and gowned."

"Dinner afterward?"

"Yup, still working on the Parisian location you suggested," Rory replied, getting up. "Bye, mom."

"Bye, hun," Lorelai replied to Rory's retreating form.

Outside, Rory headed to her car, slightly dreading the inevitable rant she'd get from Paris about her meeting with the careers advisor. Rory couldn't help pitying the poor woman, who was already of quite a nervous disposition; after a half hour meeting with Paris, the woman was almost reduced to tears. As Rory reached her car, she was pulled out of her inner trepidation by a hand on her elbow spinning her around.

"Hey," she said, somewhat bemusedly, as her eyes connected with the chocolate brown ones of Jess.

"Hey," he replied, casual as ever. "Wanna ride?" he asked, gesturing to her car.

"What?" she asked, caught off-guard.

"Do you want a ride?" he repeated, infuriatingly slowly.

"I heard what you said," she replied, rolling her eyes. "Do you even know where my school is?"

"I figured I'd stop at the gargoyles and the air of entitlement."

"You don't think I can drive myself?"

"I hear you're a danger to deer everywhere," Jess said, faking solemnity.

"Hey, that deer was a danger to me," Rory began, before giving up, throwing him the keys. "Fine, c'mon," she said, climbing into the passenger seat, still unsure as to why he'd made this impromptu offer, but chalking it up to his unpredictable charm. "But know that, if you stop to knock over a liqueur store, I'm calling Taylor."

Jess raised his eyebrows at her, "You've got Taylor's number on your phone?"

"Hey, you never know when a pompous guy in a sweater might come in handy."

"I'll bare that in mind."

* * *

"No way is that the best Smiths song!" Rory exclaimed, indignantly.

"Give me one bad point about _How Soon Is Now_," Jess countered.

"It's too long."

"You're cracked."

"Six minutes forty-seven is too long."

"It's not a song, it's a mood, and moods do not end in a convenient three and a half minutes."

Rory grinned to herself, enjoying the way he only seemed to talk this much around her. The grin was immediately replaced with a slight frown as something out the window caught her eye, "Hey, you missed the turning to my school."

"Huh, well how about that."

"Jess, turn back, I need to get to school!"

"Skip it."

Rory's eyes widened at the idea, and she replied, "I can't do that!"

"Sure you can," he replied. "Think about it: you could go to school where, knowing you, you're already ahead on all your assignments or you could come to New York."

"New York?"

"You need a graduation present for your mom, I need a day away from Stars Hollow for my mental health. We can drive up and be back in time for you to go to your mom's graduation."

"You heard us talking about that earlier?"

He shrugged, defensively, "It can be hard not to."

Rory paused, trying with all her academic resolve not to be tempted by his offer. Trying and failing miserably.

"I can turn around if you want."

"Keep driving."

"As you wish," he replied with a rare grin.

* * *

"I love this city!" Rory announced, as she walked reluctantly out of the record store, her mother's present clutched proudly in her hand.

Jess chuckled, "So it would seem."

"Not only have I spent several hours here and not seen one shop devoted to unicorns, I've also had the best hot dog of my life and found my new favourite music store."

"You'd think with all that, I'd be worthy of seeing your withering stare."

"That's for your safety only. Plus, if it took you out, as it's been known to do, then I'd be stuck in this city, guideless."

"Ah, so your withholding the stare is really just for your own selfish purposes."

"Pretty much," Rory agreed. "Plus, once rendered unconscious, you wouldn't be able to take me to the amazing book store that you've no doubt got lined up to see next."

"What makes you think there's a book store in it for you?"

"Come on, Jess," she said, as they rounded a corner. "I know you, upon five minutes of entering a town you scope out the best book store. If it helps, it'll get you one step closer to the withering stare."

"Well, in that case..." Jess trailed off, stopping in front of a small, crowded window entitled 'Kim's Bookshop'.

Rory raised her eyebrows, "A bit small, isn't it?"

Jess rolled his eyes, gesturing for her to go in. Bubbling with anticipation, Rory pushed open the door and walked in, closely followed by Jess. She had to suppress a gasp as she looked around at the rows of bookshelves filling the walls, each practically overflowing with novels, a staircase in the middle winding upwards towards floors more of this heavenly place.

"So, is this withering stare material?" Jess asked Rory, practically sensing joy emanating out of her.

She just grinned in response, pulling him fully into the store before going off to explore.

* * *

Hours later, the pair stumbled out, both weighed down by bags, Rory still carrying her book-buying glow.

"That's it, screw college, I'm moving in there," Rory decided, firmly.

"I'm sure Kim will be thrilled."

"I guess she probably wouldn't like handing over half of her stock to me either..." Rory trailed off. "Fine, I'll just have to buy everything and take it to college with me."

"You do realise you already own most of those books?"

"Yes, but I bought them new. These books are old, they have a history, not to mention the old book smell."

"I'm sorry, did you just say 'old book smell'?"

"You have not lived until you've smelt an old book. C'mon, do it," she said, brandishing _Rebecca_ by Daphne du Maurier in front of his face.

Rolling his eyes, he obliged, "Huh, that is good."

"Never doubt me again," Rory replied, satisfied. She paused, looking down at her hands as she pondered whether or not to voice an idea that she'd been toying with throughout the day. "Hey, um, Jess? I don't know if you know, but Sookie's wedding's coming up, and I have to go be a bridesmaid, and I think mom's taking Luke, and I was wondering if you'd maybe want to come? I mean, I know you hate town things, but it should be fun, I mean Miss Patty'll probably drink too much and start hitting on Kirk, and Jackson might have to wear a kilt and – "

"You want me to go with you?" he asked, cutting off her ramble.

"Well, yeah," Rory replied, staring at her fingernails.

"Okay."

"Okay?" she repeated, unsurely.

"Hey, who am I to turn down seeing Jackson in a kilt?"

"Okay," Rory repeated, smiling, still staring at her hands, allowing her gaze to float to her watch. "Oh my God! Mom's graduation! We've gotta go!" she cried, practically dragging Jess to where the car was parked, inwardly cursing her literary addiction and its ability to make her lose track of time.

* * *

"She's going to kill me," Rory groaned into her hands, sitting on her front porch after having missed the ceremony.

"She's not going to kill you. She may kill _me_, just, you know, out of habit, but you'll be fine," Jess replied, having offered to wait with her until her mom got home.

"Then she should kill me; I'm an awful, awful daughter."

"All that happened is that you were reading and you lost track of time, she'll understand."

"No, she won't! I made her do this stupid ceremony, she didn't even want to do it, and- God! I invited Grandma and Grandpa! Behind her back, and then I didn't even show up! She has every right to be mad at me."

Somewhere in this speech, guilty tears had started to fall freely down her face. Slightly uncomfortably, having never been good at the whole comforting thing, Jess draped a tentative arm across her shoulders, and allowed her to cry silently onto his.

"She'll understand," he repeated.

Rory let out a teary laugh, "You know, you shouldn't be so nice, you'll ruin your rep."

"Ah, but by tomorrow morning I'll be the evil guy who kidnapped you and forced you to miss your mother's graduation, so I can afford to do this."

She smiled slightly, bringing her head up so that she could meet his eyes, "Thank you for today, it was great, it really was."

"Any time," he replied, unconsciously leaning in towards her. Rory allowed her eyelids to flutter closed as she mirrored his actions, anticipation brewing inside her. The sound of tyres on the driveway and the brightness of headlights caused them to jerk apart just before their lips met.

"I'd better get going," Jess said, standing up, reluctantly.

"Yeah, I'll, uh, I'll see you around," Rory replied, nerves slightly frayed after the almost-kiss. She watched Jess fade into the darkness, cursing stupid interruptions, before bracing herself as her mother got out of the car.

"I'm so, so sorry mom," she said, as soon as Lorelai approached her.

"Are you hurt?" Lorelai asked, shortly.

"No, I'm fine, I – "

"Is anyone in trouble? Paris or Lane or - ?"

"No, everyone's fine," Rory replied, guilt weighing down on her.

"Okay, so now I can quit worrying and move onto other things."

"I know you're hurt."

"Yeah, you bet I'm hurt, Rory, I really wanted you there today, more than anything. You're why I did this stupid thing in the first place," Lorelai said, her hurt shining through the numbness that had possessed her tone before.

"I know," was all Rory could say, too ashamed to look her mother in the eye.

"It was a once in a lifetime thing. You should've been there. My best friend should've been there. Whatever it was that kept you, you should've gotten out of it, at least this once. Was it school?"

"It wasn't school."

"Was it Paris?"

"It wasn't Paris."

"Well, what was it?"

"It was so stupid."

"Well, Rory, where were you? What happened?"

"I cut school!"

"You what?" Lorelai asked, surprise evident in her voice.

"I cut school! And...and I don't even know why I did it, I have no excuse, I must have had a stroke or something. What does a stroke feel like?"

"I don't know. Not good, probably."

"And I didn't go to school and got in the car and I went to New York. And that's it! I'm grounded for six months, or seven, and no TV, no stereo, no reading. In fact, take all of my books away from me and lock them up," Rory said, almost in one breath, before being cut off.

"Hold on here, you went to New York?"

"I- I needed a graduation present for you, and Jess wanted to – "

"Wait a minute, you were with Jess? God, the hits just keep on coming tonight!"

"I don't know what happened!"

"You went to New York with Jess!"

"It was the stroke! It made me someone else, and after he kissed me the other week – "

"Wait, he kissed you?" Lorelai asked in disbelief.

"Yes, and it did something to me, I don't know what...and then he said he'd give me a ride to school this morning and then suggested the whole New York thing...in fact, you should take the car away from me, too. That's right, add it to the list: no books, no music, no car."

"Okay, Rory..."

"I'm a horrible person!"

Lorelai sighed, "You're not a horrible person."

"I'm sick, I'm ill, I'm cracked. This is not who I am! If I were to write this down in my diary and I would read it, I would be like, Who is this freak? This isn't me, this isn't my diary. I wouldn't do this, I wouldn't skip school when I have finals coming up and end up missing my mother's graduation, which I wanted to be at so badly. That's someone else, that's someone flighty and stupid and dumb and girly. And I mean, I missed your graduation! Which is the worst thing I could have possibly done. I mean, I hurt you, and for something so stupid! It was this amazing book store and I was just reading and shopping and I lost track of time! You're always telling me that my levels of concentration when reading and general obliviousness to the outside world while doing so would get me in trouble, and you were right, so right! And on the way home I was just thinking about all of the minutes that were going by that I wasn't at your graduation and they were hurting you, and they should have been hurting you because it was so selfish of this person who wasn't me to do what she did!"

"Okay, my God, take a breath."

"I don't deserve a breath! No breaths. You should add that to the list. You should beat me, ground me, take the car away and deprive me of air."

"Okay, look, nobody wants to say this any less than me, but maybe you don't have a medical condition or a mental problem. Maybe, honey, you have fallen for Jess."

"No," Rory said, trying to put some conviction into what she wasn't actually too sure of, herself.

"Rory, c'mon!" You cut school with the guy, and what you were talking about earlier, the whole shared interests thing, you can't pretend that you didn't have him in mind when you were saying that. Hell, you've even kissed the guy!"

"No! It- he doesn't think about me like that, he's Jess, he does stupid, impulsive things and doesn't mean them – "

"Rory, honey, you cannot be that blind. If the only thing holding you back is your insecurities, then you have nothing to worry about. It's been obvious to anyone whose senses function correctly that that guy has been crazy about you since he got to town. Look, I know it's scary, but you've just gotta suck it up and do something!"

"No! I don't want to talk about this anymore! The only thing I want to talk about is the list I made on the way back of all the ways I'm gonna make this up to you. You get total control over the remote and the stereo for as long as you want. Total control over takeout food choices and a surprise present every day for a month, speaking of which, here," Rory said, handing over the bag with the record in. "It's a vinyl copy of The Go-Gos original album and it's signed by Belinda."

"Oh my God!" Lorelai exclaimed, briefly forgetting the situation as she looked into the bag, "Where did you get this?

"A record store in New York," Rory mumbled, looking at the ground, feeling like she was getting off lightly. "I'll take you there if you want, whenever you wanna go, I'll add it to the list – "

"Okay, honey, please, forget about the list until tomorrow. We'll talk about all of this tomorrow."

"Okay, I'll just go to bed then," Rory said, trying to punish herself in some way.

"Hold on one second. Does this mean I have to eat alone?" Lorelai asked, no trace of anger left in her voice.

"Well, it's up to you. Sending me to bed without supper, you can't lose with that punishment, it's a classic."

"I'd rather go out with my daughter tonight."

"I don't deserve it," Rory protested, weakly.

"No, but I do."

"Okay, just let me take a shower and get the horrible smell of this horrible day off of me, and then we'll go anywhere you want, my treat, and I won't enjoy it. And then we'll come home and I'll go straight to bed and I'll have a terrible night's sleep, okay?"

"Sounds great."

"I'm so, so sorry, mom," Rory repeated, at last.

"Oh, really? 'Cause you didn't make that clear."

"I won't be long," Rory said, disappearing into the house.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for all the dialogue from the show in this, I'm kind of starting to wish that I'd stuck less to the show's events in this fic, because then I wouldn't have to borrow so much of the dialogue and wouldn't feel like so much of a cop out. Oh well. Hope you enjoyed it, please, please, please review. Please.**

**Oh, and for anyone who's interested, Kim's Bookshop is an actual shop, and an amazing one at that, in Arundel over here in England. So, if by any chance anyone's ever in Arundel, I highly recommend it.**


	9. Speak Now

**A/N: Hi! It's been a little while since I last wrote anything, due to starting to college and all, and the whole 'I'll-have-this-finished-by-the-end-of-summer' thing kind of failed, so here I am. Sorry for the lack of updates, but the good news is that after this there's only an epilogue left to go, and I'll try to make this chapter nice and long to make up for it. As usual, thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed, particularly those who do so consistently, you're the ones keeping me writing, so thank you!**

**Oh, and please bear in mind that, because there's been no car accident in this version of events, Lorelai and Chris haven't talked since their fight in 'It Should Have Been Lorelai', and that's the fight referenced in this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except Chris. Just kidding, he's ASP's bitch. Besides, who would really want to own Chris?

* * *

**

"Duh."

Rory blinked. It was the morning after her mother's graduation and, after a long sleepless night of guilt and reflection, she'd finally admitted to herself that yes, yes she _had_ fallen for bad boy, she _had_ allowed herself to become that cliché, and she _was_ willing to take the risks associated with that choice and ignore everything that was constantly being screamed at her by her mother, her town and her ex-boyfriend. And, after pouring this out to Lorelai, she'd expected a reaction of slightly more than one syllable.

"That's all you have to say? Duh?" she pressed, eyeing her mother carefully.

"Look, it's great that you're finally admitting it and all, but really: duh!"

"Okay, how about you stop saying 'duh' now?" Rory asked, exasperated already.

"I'm sorry, it's just, isn't this exactly what I've been telling you for the last month?" Lorelai asked, slightly amused by her daughter's consternation while trying to hide the slightly nauseous feeling she got whenever she considered her daughter's tentative relationship with The Enemy, as she referred to him in her head. Taking note of her daughter's serious expression, she felt a little guilty over her immediate reaction and tried to remedy the situation, "Okay, how about we start over? Tell me again."

Rory rolled her eyes, "Mom-"

"C'mon, I'll be better this time, I swear."

Rory sighed, giving in, "Mom, there's something I want to talk to you about."

"Oh, really? Whatever could that be?" Lorelai asked, using her very worst acting skills.

"I know you won't like this, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd trust my judgement on-"

"Okay, I don't need the whole speech again," Lorelai said, gesturing for her to speed up, "the Reader's Digest version, please."

"I like Jess."

Lorelai's eyes widened with fake incredulity and she let out an over-theatrical gasp, "Wow! This is so completely unexpected, I-"

"Stop."

"I mean, there's been absolutely no indication of-"

"Not going to, are you?"

"You know, I may need a minute just to digest this huge news."

"Seriousness? Whatever happened to that? I miss it."

"I don't think you can miss something that was never present in this household," Lorelai quipped, before relenting under her daughter's stern gaze. "Look, in all _seriousness_, I'm glad you've finally stopped denying this...whatever it is with Jess, and if you really think he'll make you happy, then I'm happy for you." Rory raised her eyebrows, "What?"

"I know that you hate him, Mom-"

"Hey, who said I hate him? Sure, we didn't exactly get off on the right foot – in fact it was so wrong a foot that I don't think you could even call it a foot anymore, more of a stump..."

"Mom..." Rory said, her tone that of warning.

"Okay, so I dislike him; I'm not always going to like your boyfriends, the point is that you do, and the fact that he seems to like you back definitely puts him a few notches above Satan in my mind. Bottom line: if you're happy, I'm happy."

"Thank you," Rory replied, with a sigh of relief.

"Though if he ever does hurt you-"

"You'll tie him to a chair and make him watch _Grease 2_ over and over for the rest of eternity?"

"Actually, I was thinking _Glitter_," Lorelai replied, a devilish glint in her eye.

"Ooh, you really are evil," Rory said, in mock-admiration. "You do realise these tortue strategies are pretty irrelevant considering the fact we don't even know if he _does_ like me back."

"Oh, he likes you back," Lorelai replied, immediately. "From my experience, boys don't spend $90 on baskets, bring over care packages that could feed China, or whisk girls spontaneously away to New York without feeling something more than friendship towards the girl in question."

Rory met her mother's eyes, uncertainly, "Those first two things could have just been him screwing with Dean, and New York was just that: spontaneous, he does things like that, he's unpredictable."

"I don't think anyone ever spent $90 and hours preparing food just in order to indirectly screw with someone else; that shows a Paris-level type of commitment," Lorelai said. "And of course, there's that kiss that you let slip about last night and seem to have magically forgotten about this morning," Rory averted her eyes. "Care to elaborate?"

"It really was nothing, he just came over the other day, just after you and Luke had gotten together, and we were talking and suddenly he just kisses me. And, I dunno, it was probably just on a whim or something, but I wouldn't really know because we got interrupted by Dean at the door-"

"And that was then he wanted you to get back together with him?"

"Yes! And Jess heard and left while I was still trying to get rid of Dean, and the whole thing just pretty much blew up in my face. Anyway, the next time we saw each other we just pretended it'd never happened, he probably regrets it," Rory said, her eyes downcast.

Lorelai rolled her eyes, "Sometimes I wonder how someone as intelligent as you can be so oblivious when it comes to a guy."

"Gee, thanks."

"Rory, you've got to look at it from his point of view. He finally kisses you, and then he hears Dean saying all these things about getting back together and probably assumes that that's what you'll do, starts feeling annoyed and leaves before he has to hear it happen. Then, a few weeks later, he hears us talking in the diner about how you and Dean didn't get back together, he realises what actually happened after he left that day, so the next thing he thinks of to do is spontaneously whisk you away to New York."

Rory stared at her mother, wide-eyed, "How did you do that?"

"Point out the obvious?"

"Take something I've been torturing myself over for weeks and making it seem like the simplest thing in the world."

"Years of experience."

"Well, what should I do now, oh wise one?"

"Well, it sounds like it's been him making the first move each time, maybe it's your turn to make some kind of gesture, just to let him know that you're interested."

"I _did_ invite him to Sookie's wedding."

"Oh, you did?" Lorelai replied, trying her best to sound encouraging.

"I thought, since you're taking Luke, we could all go together."

"Sounds good," Lorelai said, again maintaining an overly-neutral tone.

"Mom, you said you'd give him a chance," Rory argued, picking up on her mother's discomfort at the idea.

"Hey, did I say anything to the contrary?"

"Well, you look like you've just been sentenced to execution."

"Drat," she said, her shoulders slumping slightly. "Look, we've been through this, I will cut this guy all kinds of slack. Am I filled with joy at the idea of spending time with the guy? No, but if he's going to be around more, which it sounds like he is, then I'm just gonna have to get used to it, and hey, what better time to do so than when Jackson is forced to prance around wearing a kilt? It's fine," Lorelai said and then, after seeing her daughter's sceptical expression, added, "_really_."

Rory smiled, "Thanks, mom."

"No problem, it's the least I could do after you agreed to let me borrow your silver heels for the wedding."

"What? I never-"

"You wouldn't believe how grateful I am, I just think I'm gonna be able to handle the whole Jess situation so much better while wearing the perfect shoes to match the bridesmaids dresses that _I _made," Lorelai continued, evil grin back in place.

Rory sighed, "Fine, they're yours for the wedding."

"Victory!"

"Manipulator."

"Hey, follow my example and you'll go a long way in life."

"I'm so glad I have you as a role model."

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up outside.

"Who could that be?" Rory asked, getting up to go to the door.

"Burglar?" replied Lorelai, following her.

"It'd be nice to have some kind of crime record around here; we've been stuck at zero for ages, now."

"Good thing that boy of yours is around to change that," Lorelai said, earning a glare from her daughter, before opening the door. "Oh, my God."

"Dad!" Rory yelled, running out of the door to hug Christopher as Lorelai hung back slightly, their last fight still all too present in her mind.

"What are you doing here, Mr Spontaneity?" she asked, stepping out onto the porch.

"Cable's out, so I figured this town was the next best source of entertainment."

"Well, we did just get a second mini-golf place over on Plum," Rory replied, matching his sarcasm. "Come in, come in!"

Lorelai stepped aside as they walked into house, letting out a sigh and muttering "Christopher..." before going to join them on the couch.

"So, seriously, what are you doing here?" Rory asked.

"I had a conference over in Hartford that's keeping me there for a couple of days, so I thought I'd pay you a visit while I was in the area," Chris explained. "That is okay, isn't it?" he asked Lorelai, eyeing her somewhat awkwardly after their last conversation.

"Of course it's fine, you're always welcome here – you know that," she assured him, not quite meeting his eye.

"So, anything exciting happening around here?"

"Didn't I already say about the mini-golf?" Rory replied.

"Forget it, stupid question," he said, laughing slightly.

"Actually, there's a wedding coming up this Sunday," Rory continued.

"Oh yeah? Whose?"

"Sookie and Jackson, I think you met them when you were last here."

"Oh, the guy who said I looked like George Clooney? How could I forget?"

"That's the one," Rory said, chuckling. "Hey, you know what? You should come, it'll be fun! Mom'll bring Luke and I'm bringing someone, too, we can all go together. I mean, if it's okay with mom."

Lorelai hesitated, trying to choose her words carefully, "I-"

Chris cut across her, "I think it might be best if I sat this one out."

"Oh, okay," Rory said, a little disappointed. "Well, if you change your mind..."

"I'll alert the town crier immediately," Chris finished.

"Okay, well I've got to go meet Lane, I'll see you later?"

"See you, kiddo," Chris replied, hugging her again before she left. Chris and Lorelai sat alone for a moment, both trying to forget about last time they'd seen each other, before Chris gave in, saying, "Look, about last time I was here-"

"Don't, it was me, I really didn't mean-" Lorelai interrupted, relieved to finally get it out in the open.

"I shouldn't have-"

"Of course I'd never think that-"

"I know that, I was-"

"I'm sorry," they said, simultaneously.

Lorelai let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, "Hey, did I mention I'm really glad you're here?"

"I don't believe you did, no."

"Well, I am. I think it's great that you've suddenly snapped into Dad mode, and I know Rory really appreciates it. And you know, I don't mind so much, either."

"Even with the Volvo?"

"Are you kidding? With that sound system, I may be taking that thing off you," she said, then, at his raised eyebrows added, "to rip out the stereo to put in the Jeep, of course."

"You always were stubborn."

"And yet your bad taste in cars seems to be a fairly recent development."

"Speaking of recent developments, you and diner guy, huh? How long's that been going on for?"

"Caesar and I have been exclusive for quite a few weeks now," she joked.

"Lor..."

"What? You have to be more specific with your 'diner guy's, there _are_ three of them, now."

"Having a conversation with you is exhausting, has anyone ever told you that?"

"Only the people that can't keep up," she shot back, pausing a moment before answering seriously. "Luke and I have been together for about a month now, and things are going really, really well."

"That's great, Lor, I'm happy for you," he said, with what seemed like genuine sincerity.

"How about you? Have you got Sherry stowed away in that girly trunk of yours?"

"Me and Sherry are..." he trailed off.

"Amazing? In love? About to fly off to meet Paul McCartney? What?"

"We're taking some time, at the moment."

"Time?"

"Time apart, things aren't going so well at the moment."

"Oh, Chris, I'm so sorry, she really seemed like she was in it for the long haul."

"She is, it's me I'm not so sure about."

"Well, either way, I'm sorry." Beat. "Look, about this wedding thing-"

"It's okay, Lor, I get it, you're going with Luke, it'd be weird having me tag along with you two."

"No, really, you should come, Rory wants you there. And, hey, you introduced me to Sherry; it's only fair that you meet the guy in my life, especially if he has a role in your daughter's life. I just have to okay it with Sookie, but it should be fine."

"You're sure you're cool with this?"

"Ice is forming on me as we speak."

"Okay then, thanks Lor."

"No problem."

There was a brief pause, before Chris asked, "So, who's 'someone'?"

"Huh?"

"Rory said she was bringing 'someone'. What happened to Dean?"

"They broke up. Over _someone_."

Chris paused, scrutinising her expression for a minute, "You hate the guy."

"I don't!"

"You so do, it's all over your face."

Lorelai sighed, giving in, "He wears leather jackets and skips school and smokes and he's managed to get my daughter completely infatuated with him while she was dating someone else."

"Sounds like my kinda guy."

Lorelai scowled at him, before saying, "Well, there is one good thing about him."

"He has mafia connections?"

"On several occasions I've seen him sporting a Metallica t-shirt."

Lorelai grinned as they sunk back into their age-old Metallica/Offspring war. _Christopher...

* * *

_

Still feeling happy from the surprise visit from her dad, Rory entered the diner smiling, steering herself towards the counter when she saw a familiar face behind a book there, "Hey."

Her smiled widened slightly as she noticed how he put his book away immediately at the contact, "Hey," he returned. "How'd it go last night with your mom? Should I fear for my life?"

"After some profuse apologies things got straightened out, so I'd say you're safe; sleeping with a helmet on might not be such a bad idea, though."

"I'll bear that in mind," he said, pouring her a cup of coffee and passing it to her.

"Am I that predictable?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

"Are you seriously asking if your coffee habits are predictable? You do realise I've been working here for months, right?"

Rory's eyes narrowed, and she replied, stubbornly, "I'll have one tea, please."

"Stop," he said, disbelievingly.

"Mmm, a nice warm tea, all rich in, erm...tea-ness."

"I can see you're an expert," he held her gaze and, upon seeing that she wasn't backing down, added, "Fine, have it your way." Smirking, he poured out a tea for her.

Trying to match him scorn for scorn, she took a long sip, then tried to keep her face as neutral as possible as the burning liquid passed down her throat, but not quite managing to hide her instinctual grimace.

"Huh, no good?"

She glared at him, taking another long sip, making him laugh at her resulting expression.

"But what about the rich tea-ness?" he teased.

Giving up, she slid the offending beverage back across the counter to him, snatching up her original coffee and practically inhaling it. She looked over the rim of her mug to see his trademark smirk firmly in place. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"Good, continue not to do so," she said, taking another gulp of coffee. When she looked back at him to find that annoying expression still present, she sighed in irritation, saying, "You won't be smirking when you have to wear a tux to the wedding on Sunday."

The smirk dropped off his face in an instant, "Huh?"

"You heard me."

"A tux was never mentioned in the offer."

"It was implied," she said. "You could always wear a kilt, if you prefer, so that Jackson isn't alone in doing so," she suggested, all too innocently.

"How about jeans and a Metallica T-shirt?"

"How about gloves and tails?"

"Tool? The Clash? I'm sure as hell not borrowing Luke's Jimmy Buffet."

"Slacks and a shirt at the very least," she retorted, firmly. When he continued to stare blankly at her, she added, "And I'll owe you."

"Please, you already owe me for reading The Fountainhead. Not to mention the egg roll," he reminded her.

"I think the original egg roll may still be in my refridgerator if you're interested."

"Remind me never to eat anything at your house ever again," he retorted.

Rory sighed, deciding she'd have to use the famous Gilmore pout.

Jess made a valiant attempt at ignoring it but, in the end, relented, saying, "Fine, slacks and a shirt, but you _do_ owe me."

She grinned, "Fifty egg rolls coming your way, mister."

Before he could reply, Luke came over, greeting Rory briefly before saying, "Jess, what exactly is it that I'm paying you to do?"

"I'm sorry, do you mean under-paying?"

Ignoring him, Luke continued, "Is it to sit around at the counter having a nice, long conversation while I rush around like a crazy person trying to get everyone served?"

"No," Rory supplied for him, meeting Jess' glare with an overly innocent expression. "It seemed like the right answer," she explained.

"Exactly," Luke continued. "Now, how about you actually do the job you're being paid for?" Jess opened his mouth to interject, but Luke cut him off, "And don't say "under-paid" because, considering the fact that you spend most of your time sitting around here I'd say I grossly over-pay you."

Jess rolled his eyes, following his uncle out from behind the counter to serve some customers. Rory smirked at the exchange, before taking another sip of coffee. "God, so much better than tea," she mumbled, grabbing the pot from behind the counter to refill her cup.

The ringing of the bell announced the entrance of Lane, who took a seat next to Rory, stealing a sip of her coffee, "Sorry I'm so late, you have no idea how long it takes to chew the new organic-oatmeal concoction that's supposed to pass as a cookie that Mama just bought." At Rory's disgusted expression, she continued, "That's not the worst of it, she orders things in bulk now, so I'll be eating _Organo's_ until the day I die."

Rory's forehead wrinkled, "_Organo's_?"

"It's supposed to be some kind of wordplay on _Oreo's_, just organic; it's not the cleverest of names."

"Say no more."

"Anyway, I have around five minutes to order some food that was actually intended for humans before Mama walks past on the way to her prayer group and discovers me consuming the evil fast food."

"Got it," Rory replied. "Two burgers with fries to go, please?" she said to Luke as he walked past.

"Coming up," said Luke, knowing better than to try to argue the evils of junk food with the petite Korean girl.

"So, how's life as an aspiring rock star treating you?" asked Rory, grabbing back her coffee from her.

"Oh, you mean other than the fact that I have neither a drum kit, nor a mother who'd allow me within ten feet of one?"

"Yeah, other than that."

"About as well as the Gallagher brothers' relationship."

"But you've been so psyched about it for weeks!"

"Yeah, what can I say? The fact that I still have no where to play, no band to play with, and I still have the taste of _Organo's_ in my mouth is putting rather a dampener on the whole thing."

Rory thanked Luke as he gave them their food, before turning back to Lane, "Well, we can definitely rectify that last part, I hear Luke's burgers are the perfect _Organo_ remedy."

"Ooh, five minutes is up, let's go eat these away from the prying eyes of Mrs Kim," Lane said, getting up.

Rory followed her, grabbing their take out bags, turning as she heard Jess say, "Hey, next time you come back I'm expecting those egg rolls."

She smiled, "I'll get right on it," she replied, before following Lane outside.

Her friend raised her eyebrows at her, "Egg rolls?"

Rory grinned, "I'll explain later."

* * *

"Mom, stop primping, we're gonna be late!" Rory called up the stairs, having been ready for about half an hour. It was the day of the wedding, though Rory was beginning to wonder if they'd make it out of the house by the end of the year, let alone the start of the wedding what with the time it took her mother to get ready.

"You wait until you hit thirty and your skin no longer looks like it belongs in an angelic chorus, then you won't be hurrying me!" came Lorelai's voice from up the stairs.

"Actually, no, by the time I'm thirty I'll still be waiting for you to get ready!" Rory replied, giving up and sitting down on the couch with a magazine.

Lorelai emerged on the staircase, half hopping as she tried to fasten her shoe while going down, "See this?" she called down to Rory, "This is multi-tasking; I may fall, I'm risking my life because of your rushing me!"

"Oh yes, because my rushing you was more to do with the thirty seconds it takes you to put shoes on than the the era it takes you to apply make-up."

"Oh hush, you, I'm ready now, and look at that, Luke and Jess aren't even here now, so I'm _early_."

"Luke's been dating you for over a month now; he knows to show up half an hour later than promised."

"I trained him well, didn't I?" replied Lorelai, grinning.

"Better than you trained me, I've known you sixteen years and still expect you to be ready when you say you well."

"Yeah, well, you're naive that way," Lorelai explained with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Speaking of Luke, are you sure he's okay with having Dad meet us there?"

"I talked it over with him, and he seems okay with it. I mean, it might be a little weird, but I feel like I owe it to Chris after he made the effort to introduce as to Sherry when I never really thought to do the same with Max."

"That sounds fair," Rory agreed, before a knock sounded at the door. "That'd be them."

Lorelai checked her watch, "Twenty-seven minutes late, I _did_ train him well."

They got up to answer the door, revealing the two guys, both looking significantly smarter than usual. "Well, look who cleans up well?" Lorelai said to Luke, grinning approvingly.

"It's just so hard to find suits in plaid these days," he returned sarcastically, as he took her arm and led her out towards the driveway, leaving Rory and Jess in the doorway.

"You know, you don't clean up so bad, yourself."

"Yeah, well apparently weddings are a great place to meet women, and who am I to doubt the word of Kirk?"

"He's right, I'm sure Miss Patty'll be on the look-out for husband number six, it could be your lucky day," she returned.

"Don't joke, that woman scares me."

"Hey, you two!" Lorelai called from the Jeep. "Hurry up! I've got countless _Brigadoon_ references accumulating in my head and if I don't see a man in a kilt soon I think I'll explode, which would be a shame, because it may ruin Luke's only non-flannel outfit!"

"Coming!" Rory called back, before turning to Jess, "Come on, Miss Patty awaits."

Trying his best to mask his horror at her last statement, he followed her out to the car.

* * *

"Please tell me that's not Kirk's singing that I hear," Luke begged Lorelai as they all walked towards the ceremony.

"Be quiet, he'll hear you!" Lorelai shushed him, "If you make him stop before he starts his world famous Shania Twain medley, I might never forgive you."

"Don't worry, Luke, Babette and Miss Patty will take over before long," Rory reassured him with a grin.

"What a relief," Luke deadpanned.

"I know it's a huge load off my mind," Jess concurred, his tone matching his uncle's.

"Just steer me towards the beer."

"You got it, honey," Lorelai said, steering him into the crowd as she navigated towards the booze.

"So, are you ready to party like it's 1999?" Rory quipped, smirking.

"Since this is Stars Hollow, I'd say more like _1984_," he returned, following her towards the throng, reluctantly.

"Aw, now get into the spirit of things, neighbour, I hear there may be some tree-planting after the ceremony."

"I think I may have to follow Luke towards the beer."

"Good luck trying to sneak booze while Taylor's on the prowl. Besides, that alcohol is gonna seem more like a curse than a blessing by the time Babette and Miss Patty have it circulating around their systems, we may have to hide you."

"Best offer I've gotten all day."

"C'mon, let's go find mom and Luke," Rory said, navigating them through the crowd.

As they walked through the group of Stars Hollow-ers, Rory couldn't help but feel she was being stared at. From the disapproving glare of Taylor to the slight grimace from Kirk (before quickly picking up the line of the song he was part-way through), Rory was feeling pretty self-concious.

After a knowing wink from Patty that made her want to blush up to the roots of her hair, she turned back to Jess, "I think I'm getting the _1984_ reference now."

She got an amused smirk in response and continued to search for the other two members of the group.

It was when Babette said, in passing, "Nice going, sugar," with a nod in the direction of Jess, that Rory gave up, grabbing him by the wrist, saying, "That's it, let's get out of here."

Jess faked a gasp, "Rory Gilmore ditching a Stars Hollow event? Whatever would the gossips of Maycomb County think?"

"You are way too up on your literary references today."

"That's rich, coming from you."

"Less talking, more walking," Rory said, steering them into the wooded area around the inn as more people started to stare at the two.

* * *

"How do they not serve beer at this thing?" Luke asked, exasperated, while Lorelai continued to derive more amusement out of his frustration.

"Be a big boy and drink your coctail."

"It's...fruity."

"What's wrong with fruity?"

"Men do not drink fruity coctails. Men drink beer."

"When you attend the wedding of a produce man, you can expect fruity."

Luke was cut off by the approach of Christopher, who – Luke noted, bitterly – was happily sipping his coctail.

"Hey! Glad you could make it," Lorelai greeted warmly, feeling Luke's protective arm slip around her as Chris came nearer.

"Are you kidding? You know that if there's free booze, I'm there," Chris replied, before extending a hand to Luke. "Hey, I don't think we've been formally introduced, I'm Chris."

"I kinda gathered," Luke said, shaking his hand, "good to meet you."

"Likewise, likewise," Chris said. There was a slightly awkward pause, all parties at a loss for what to say, before Chris took another sip from his glass, saying "God, these things are good, they kind of remind of those coctails at your Uncle Andrew's wedding, Lor, what were those things called?"

"Blue Angels," Lorelai supplied, not quite knowing where this was going.

"Blue Angels, yeah! Remember how we bribed the bartender into mixing us a jug, and then snuck out the back and had like, ten in the alleyway? And then your parents found us and we had to pretend not to be completed wasted?"

"Uh, yeah, I remember," Lorelai said, uncomfortably, frowning slightly as she snatched nervous glances at Luke. "Chris, how about we-"

"We go back a long way, Lorelai and I, you see," Chris said, suddenly serious again, directing the comment towards Luke. Lorelai began to wonder how many of those coctails he'd had before they'd got there.

"Yeah, I know, Lorelai's told me during the five years that I've been around _consistently_," Luke bit back, growing slightly irritated.

"Hey, buddy, I'm just saying, there's a lot of history there, and no matter whom she happens to be dating at the time, that's not going to change the fact that I'll always be around. _Always_," Chris pressed further.

Luke snapped at this, "Oh, really? Where were you when Rory got the chicken pox and would only eat mashed potatoes for a week? Or when she turned sixteen, I don't recall you being there either. Who crawled around trying to track down a superhuman chick for her school project? Because, it's funny, for someone who's always around, I don't remember you being here an awful lot."

"Hey, listen I-"

"That's enough, okay!" Lorelai snapped. She turned to Luke, "Can you please give us a minute? This won't take long." Reluctantly, Luke went to get them some drinks, while Lorelai steered Christopher round the corner into a slightly more secluded spot, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you drunk? Is that it? Because when I invited you to this thing, you were fine, when I told you about Luke and I you were fine, happy for me, even, and now you're re-telling childhood stories and trying to throw our history in his face!"

"I thought I was fine, I thought this would be fine, but seeing you together...something snapped, okay? And I can't carry on pretending, this is so stupid – can't you see it? You know that we're supposed to be together, Lor; I'm in love with you, still, that's why it didn't work with Sherry, that's why it'll never work with anyone. And I know you love me, too, Lor, I know it; just like I know this thing with Luke is just temporary, it has to be just temporaty, because you love me, Lor, you do!"

Lorelai stared at him in shock, trying to take a gentler tone as vestiges of pity crept upon her, "Chris, I-"

Before she had a chance to say anything else, he grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her into a kiss. Too surprised to react at first, she stood their motionless as he kissed her with the intensity of a man taking his last few breaths. But, as soon as she realised what was happening, she pulled back, pushing him off of her. She just stared at him for a moment, a mixture of surprise and anger rendering her, for once in her life, speechless.

"You can't tell me you didn't feel anything there, Lor."

"I felt nothing," she said, putting as much force behind those words as possible. "Christopher, it's been sixteen years, I have moved on; I'm with Luke, that's it! There is no _us_ anymore, accept that!"

Chris' hurt expression turned into one of slight triumph as he noticed something over her shoulder, "Well, you might want to tell him that."

"What?" she turned around, to see Luke's retreating form. Panic springing up within her, she immediately went to chase after him, frustrated to find Chris holding her back by the arm.

"Lor, just wait-"

Yanking her arm free, she managed to get out a livid, "Go _home_, Christopher, and don't you dare follow me," before taking off after Luke's now distant form.

* * *

Rory kept walking until the sound of Kirk's singing had faded to a distant murmur as they came to a slightly more wooded area, by the lake.

"Okay, I think we should be fairly safe from _Big Brother_ here," she said, going to sit down, leaning against a tree as Jess followed suit, taking a seat next to her.

"That's what you may think; I have reason to be afraid around lakes."

"Paranoid."

"Easy for you to say, you've never been pushed into one."

"And now I know not to get on the wrong side of Luke," she said, leaning further back against the tree as she got comfortable. "Hey, see that shed over there? That's where mom and I lived when we first moved here; I would show you it, but I think there's a guy named Rune living there at the moment."

"Okay, who is depraved enough to name their kid Rune?"

"Says the guy with a girl's name."

"Now there, that's not very neighbourly, keep talking like that and you may lose your position as town princess."

"I think that title's been at risk anyway due to fraternising with the town hoodlum."

"So, that's my official role now?"

"Yup, every town needs a hoodlum – you think this town's against you, but really we're in desperate need of someone to fill our delinquent quota."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, ever since Billy Vaughan decided to join AA we've been lost."

"You'd have survived, that guy's bound to fall off the wagon sooner or later."

"Aren't you ever the optimist?"

"I'm just saying, I doubt you can last that long in this town without having a drink now and then."

"I'll have you know that Kirk's mother has made sure that he never touched a drop of alcohol in his entire life, and look how he turned out."

"Well, how can you argue with evidence like that?"

"Exactly." There was a slight pause, while Rory summoned up the courage to broach the topic that had been plaguing her mind for weeks now, "Look, we never really talked about what happened the other week, right before Dean came over, and I just wanted to make sure that-"

He cut her off, "Look, it's okay, if you want to pretend like nothing happened, that's fine, I'm sorry it happened."

"You are?" she asked, somewhat despondently.

"Let's just forget about it, okay?"

"Oh...okay," she murmured, looking down at the ground.

There was a brief pause while Rory sat there, feeling disappointed and slightly humiliated, before his voice broke across the silence, "You look beautiful today, by the way."

Her gaze flew back up to meet his. In the next moment, for once in her life, Rory Gilmore didn't think about what she was doing, giving into the impulse that she'd been carrying around since the frustrating guy sitting in front of her had moved to town, she closed the brief distance between them, pressing her lips to his.

His response was instantaneous as their lips moved together tentatively, yet less shyly than the first time as the kiss deepened. One of her arms fastened itself around his back while the other toyed in his hair, unknowingly messing up a lot of uncharacteristically careful styling – not that Jess cared a bit at this point. His arm wrapped around her waist, drawing her closer to him, relishing in the same electric feeling as the first time they'd kissed, heightened by the fact that this time around they weren't about to be interrupted by some floppy-haired moron with a death wish. They finally broke apart as the need for oxygen became a problem.

"So, just to be clear, we're not forgetting about it?" he asked, in between breaths, smirking slightly.

Rory just shook her head slightly, grinning, before pulling him back in again.

* * *

"Luke!" Lorelai yelled, finally catching up with him. "Will you just turn around so that I can explain?"

Giving up, he stopped and turned around to her, anger and hurt evident in his expression, "There's nothing to explain, okay? I saw you. God, I can't believe how much of an idiot I've been! You're never going to be over him! And, he was right about something, he's always gonna be around."

"Luke, that's not true! He kissed _me_, and as soon as I realised what was happening I pushed him away, I turned him down – that's what happened!"

"Yeah, well that's not what it looked like to me," he said, turning back around and continuing to walk away.

She kept walking alongside him, matching his pace, "You left before you saw me push him away; that's all that happened, I swear! Look, if you want, he's gone; he's out of my life, that's it! Please, just believe me!"

"Even if I did believe you, he's never going to be out of your life, he's Rory's father!"

"Rory's; not mine! Me and him, that's it, I never have to see him again, I promise!"

"You know that's a lie."

"Okay, maybe he'll visit; probably not for a while now because I think his survival instinct's a little better than that, but sooner or later, he will want to see his daughter, and I can't stop him, but that doesn't mean anything! I don't want to be with Chris, Luke; I want to be with _you_, okay? I love _you_!"

He stopped in his tracks, turning to her, "What did you just say?"

She froze, as what she'd just said sunk in, then let out a breath, realising that it was completely true. "I love you, Luke," she repeated.

His anger dissipated in approximately two point five seconds as he grabbed the amazing, coffee-obsessed – possibly certifiably insane – woman in front of him, kissing her passionately. After a moment, he pulled back for a second, "You know I love you, too, right?"

Lorelai smiled, "Yeah, I think I got that."

"Good," he said, continuing where they'd left off.

* * *

"There's something you should probably know," Rory managed to say, inbetween kisses.

"Uh-huh," Jess murmured against her lips.

"And in order-" kiss "-to tell you-" kiss "-I may need full control of my mouth," she persisted, causing him to reluctantly pull back. "Paris sorta roped me into running for student body vice president alongside her and-"

"You interrupted this to talk about private school politics?" he asked, dryly.

"And _the point is_," she pressed, stubbornly, "The winners are supposed to go to Washington for the whole summer."

"Huh."

"I could probably get out of it, I mean, I never really wanted to spend a summer away anyway, and to share a dorm room with Paris? It's not exactly ideal."

"You should go," he said, resignedly.

"It's not even that important," she carried on, as if he'd never said anything. "It's just some public speaking exercises and a chance to meet some politicians, big deal."

"Look, relax, I don't mind if you go, it sounds like the kind of thing that'll get you that place in Harvard that you're always obsessing about."

"You sure you don't mind?"

"Hey, to tell you the truth, I was getting kind of sick of you," he teased.

She raised her eyebrows, "Well, guess you won't miss this too much, then," she said, kissing him again, before abruptly pulling back. "Oh, my God – the ceremony!"

"What?" he asked, somewhat disgruntled at being cut off _again_.

"It's gonna start any minute, I'm a bridesmaid, we've gotta go!" she said, tugging him up by the arm.

"I swear, this whole kilt thing better be as funny as you said it would," he threatened as she grabbed his hand, pulling him into a run to get back in time.

* * *

Rory ran to meet her mother, who handed her a bouquet, as they paused before they were set to walk down towards the aisle. She noted with curiosity that her mother was beaming about something but, not having time to ask, and having around a million things that she wanted to tell her, she settled for the easiest one before they started walking.

"I think I'm going to Washington."

"Okay."

* * *

**A/N: Heh, that ending may make little sense unless you remember that that's what they said to each other originally at the end of season 2 (I've watched that finale too many times...). Oh, and sorry I made Chris an ass, I happen to actually like Chris (most of the time), but I was trying to channel different parts of the show in this, what with Chris being in the original season 2 finale, and then his reaction to Luke and Lorelai in **_**Wedding Bell Blues**_**. I'm not really sure his role in the chapter was entirely necessary, but I felt like fleshing out some more Java Junkie alongside the Lit-goodness.**

**Anyway, yay! One epilogue to go, and this baby is done, at last! Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for sticking around this long, to show my gratitude, I won't even beg you to review.**

**(Just kidding, please do. Please, please, please. With some founder's day punch on top.)**


	10. Epilogue: Summer of '02

**Epilogue - Summer of '02**

**A/N: Hello! As repetitive as it will be for me to apologise **_**once again**_** for being awful at updating regularly and consistently, I'm just going to do so anyway, because I've had such lovely reviews and I'm so sorry that I suck at making myself write. Anyway, the good news is, this is the end, therefore no more waiting for me to stop procrastinating and put pen to paper (metaphorically, of course – fingers to keys doesn't sound as good). Unless, of course, you follow my other stories, in which case all I can do is apologise further.**

**Mainly, thank you to all of you who have reviewed consistently throughout! It's been a lovely experience, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without all of you, so I'm eternally in your debt.**

**So, here's to watram, Maiqu, Yellow Words, Curley-Q, Jeremy Shane, Midnight-Gypsy101, Eupa (without whose badgering both online and in person I probably wouldn't have moved past chapter 1), MonisMelody, LiteratiLady, ., LitLover101, Mallikad, Rue Mo, watergurl123, Lara-Van, Sailor-Lit and everyone else who has reviewed! Sorry if I missed you out, these are just some of the names that I see consistently in the review section. And again, sorry if I haven't replied to your reviews, believe me I've read and appreciated every single one, but I have so much stupid work, and most of the time I just want to send each of you a huge thank you, which is most easily expressed communally here.**

**Oh, and: Ack! I can't write Paris! *bangs head against wall repeatedly***

**Disclaimer: For the last time (in this story, anyway...) I own nothing. I think reading through this story will prove that I do not have an ounce of the skill of any of the writers on this show.

* * *

**

_Week 1_

Her finger twirls absent-mindedly around the phone chord as Rory listens to the slow, calming drone of the dial tone, scolding herself for feeling nervous. It's not like it's a big deal, calling your boyfriend, right? Even if the last time she'd seen him he'd kissed her in a way that was new to her, even though she'd been in a steady relationship with someone else for over a year before he even came into the picture. _Oh great, now I'm blushing,_ she thought, growing more frustrated with herself.

"Will you just dial already?" Came the ever sympathetic voice of her roommate for the next six weeks – or five weeks, six days and five hours, technically (not that Rory looked forward to the prospect of no longer sharing a room with her) – from across the room.

Sighing, Rory spun round in the hotel chair so that she was facing Paris, "Thanks for your advice."

"Look, this is pathetic, call him. I'm sure he'll drop whatever barbaric, chauvinistic beat poet he's currently engrossed in for the chance to talk to you; you seem to have that kind of effect on guys."

"Shut up, I do _not_."

"Believe it or not, I saw Farmer John waiting for you like a golden retriever outside Chilton at the end of every after-school Franklin meeting to whisk you away to an afternoon of Jolly Green romance. I picture romantic picnics of leftover stock acquired through his coveted position as bag boy."

Rory glared at Paris, "What is wrong with you? You seem crabbier than usual."

"It was those imbeciles who sat in front of us on the plane; I think my IQ dropped twenty points sitting in front of those simpletons."

"Yeah, well, I think you got your revenge, what with _accidentally_ dropping your hard cover edition of _War and Peace_ on the seat in front of you," Rory shot back, trying to erase that uncomfortable memory from her mind, before remembering Paris' earlier point. "Besides, how do you even know who I'm going to call?"

"Let's see, you broke up with Goliath-"

"Seriously? More Biblical nicknames? I'm beginning to think you just sit around at home thinking up more."

Paris continued, ignoring her, "You've already called your mom and I highly doubt you spend ten minutes deliberating over calling Lane or your Grandparents. That leaves Hemingway."

"Gee, make me sound friendless, why don't you," Rory grumbled, defeated, before raising her hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I give; I'm dialling," she relented, spinning back around and dialling the sequence of numbers that had been playing in her head for the last half hour.

"Hello?" Despite herself, she smiled upon hearing Jess' voice again.

"Hey," she replied, hoping her voice didn't show her grin.

"Finally!" Paris cried, slumping back onto her bed.

"Ignore her, she's...well, it's Paris, I don't think she needs an excuse," Rory joked, dodging the pen that came flying towards her from Paris' side of the room.

Jess let out a low chuckle, "So, I'm guessing someone had a pretty fun flight."

"Oh yeah, one of the highlights was Paris dropping one of the longest books ever written onto the head of the passenger in front for, and I quote, 'breathing too loudly'."

"It just doesn't get better than that."

"It turns out he had asthma."

"I stand corrected."

"Hey!" Paris' voice sounded again, "Asthma does not excuse inhaling as loudly as a twenty ton vacuum cleaner every other second while I'm trying to re-read my topic cards of conversation prepared for when we meet the senators."

"Are you sure you don't want to switch rooms? I mean, you could end up with a serial killer, but I think that'd still be preferable," Jess replied, having heard Paris' dulcet tones from over the line.

"Bite me, Marlon Brando."

"Paris, you didn't even hear what he said," Rory said, turning back around to talk to her.

"You don't have to be Hercule Poirot to predict some kind of generic sarcastic response."

"I've gotta say, kinda scared for you at the moment," Jess said to Rory, as she took the phone, walking into the bathroom so as not to be interrupted by Paris anymore.

"You're not alone. Only five weeks, six days, four hours, thirty-five minutes to go until I no longer have to sleep with a helmet on."

"It was nice knowing you."

"Gee, thanks, Sir Optimism."

"Any time, Lady Sarcasm."

"I think we've found our superhero names," she quipped. "Ugh, distract me from my six weeks of impending doom, how's the town?"

"As hellish as ever."

"Really earning your superhero name, there."

"When have I ever had anything positive to say about this town?" Beat. "I'm guessing that your silence is an indication that you'd like me to elaborate."

"Over ten word answer, please," Rory pressed, amused, as she sat down against the bathroom, making herself more comfortable.

"Fine. Luke: yells, Kirk: infuriating, Taylor: more so, Patty: terrifying, Babette: loud. Eleven words."

"Talking with you is like pulling teeth."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"You shouldn't be failing English Lit with as interesting interpretations of insults as that."

"Hey, I resent that, how d'you know I'm failing?"

"Just a wild guess."

"Guess again."

Rory sat up straighter, surprised, "What?"

"I'm not failing. Any subject, actually."

"Doesn't that require actually attending school?"

"Huh, guess so," he replied, stoically. "If the next sentence out of your mouth contains the word 'proud', I'm hanging up."

There was a pause, "Am I allowed to say the word in French?"

"Nope."

"Spanish?"

"Please don't suggest Latin next."

"Well, I only know so many languages, you're kind of limiting me," she replied, grinning like an idiot, before returning to seriousness. "Just...well done, Jess."

"Gilmore!" Paris' voice sounded from the other room, "If you're done trying to figure out who uses more product in their hair – it's him, by the way – could you wrap it up so that we may actually get some sleep?"

Rory rolled her eyes, "Guess that's me spoken for."

"Make sure that helmet you sleep in is as tight as humanly possible."

She chuckled, "Night, Jess."

"Goodnight, Ror," he replied, clicking off.

* * *

_Week 2_

_To: Jess Mariano  
From: Rory Gilmore  
_

_Subject: If you ever get this..._

_Dear Jess,_

_I have no idea whether you'll ever actually get this, seeing as I've seen Luke's computer and it looks like something out of a Molly Ringwald film, but I'm currently banned from using the phone. That's right: banned; you see, among the interesting things I've learnt while sharing a room with Paris is that she needs to have at least fifteen minutes of silent "cool down" time before she can sleep. Which means that I'm currently trying to type as quietly as possible while she breathes in and out slowly mumbling incoherently – still think you've got the worse deal this summer?_

_We had to do a debate today, though it was nothing on our Rand/Hemingway arguments, of course. I won't go into it, but it ended in a victorious Paris and a grown man walking out in tears, which I think made her happier. Am hoping things at the Hollow have gotten slightly more entertaining since we last talked and if not, I seem to remember one chalk body outline, several outraged Bambi and Dumbo renters and a multitude of missing baseballs that show that you're perfectly capable of making your own entertainment, so no complaints, okay?  
Gotta go, apparently I type too loudly, who knew?_

_No. of grown men Paris has made cry: Two.  
No. of people I'd rather share a room with: I've lost count.  
No. of cups of coffee consumed: Eight._

_Rory_

_To: Rory Gilmore__  
__From: Jess Mariano  
_

_Subject: Re: If you ever get this..._

_Rory,_

_After some confusion on Luke's part as to how to actually turn on this "contraption" – his words, not mine – it's working. Vaguely._

_I think the entire contents of your email explain why I don't call you at your hotel: Paris Gellar scares the hell out of me. I don't think even the Gilmore pout could induce me to risk her answering the phone. (Which is probably not true, but I'm trying to retain _some _masculinity by at least pretending that there are limitations on what that expression can do to me.)_

_I don't really think you can classify our conversations over Rand and Hemingway as debates, considering they consist of me stating fact and you stubbornly continuing to deny it._

_As far as entertainment goes, this town is still about as interesting as the lyrics of a Frankie Goes To Hollywood song. Honestly, the most interesting thing that's happened has been the breaking of a snow cone machine which, I'm sure you'll believe, I had absolutely nothing to do with..._

_Better go now, this machine is whirring at me and, as much as it would annoy Taylor, I don't want to be responsible for the first electrical explosion Stars Hollow has ever seen._

_Jess_

_

* * *

_

_Week 3_

"Hello?"

"Rory?"

"You can't tell your own girlfriend's voice? That's just swell, pal."

Jess sighed, "Pleasure as always, Paris."

"Bite me."

"Is Rory around?"

"Yes. She also requests that you bite me."

"Paris, are you terrorising my boyfriend again?" asked Rory, towel-drying her hair as she walked out of the bathroom.

"Would you believe me if I denied it?"

"Phone please," Rory said, grabbing the phone from her friend and taking a seat on her bed. "Still there?"

"That right there is why I don't like calling you here."

"And my irresistible charm is why you do so anyway?"

"That, and all my other regular two-oh-two numbers were busy, so..."

"Whatever," Rory scoffed. "Admit it: you miss me."

"And ruin my carefully cultivated reputation? Never."

"I miss you, too," Rory admitted, ignoring the fact that he still hadn't relented.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah – without your supply of Hemingway novels I've had no way to get to sleep."

"Y'know, I think your over-criticism of the guy is just covering up your burning love for Hemingway," Jess theorised, earning a derisive snort from his girlfriend. He frowned as he heard Luke's muffled shouts coming from the bottom of the staircase. "Hold on a sec," he said, resting the phone on the table as he went to see what it was his irate uncle wanted this time.

Rory settled back onto her bed, strumming her fingers on her desk absent-mindedly as she waited for him to return. Sooner than she expected, she heard movement on the other end of the line, "Well, that was quick."

"Rory?" Came an all-too-familiar voice.

"_Kirk_?" She replied, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"Yup, it's me. How's Washington? My mother has a friend in Washington, or was it Vermont? I can never remember-"

"Um, Kirk, do you think you should be in Luke and Jess' apartment?" Asked Rory, trying to hold back laughter.

"Well," he said, sounding vaguely puzzled, "I've never really thought about it. I come up here sometimes, when they're busy, I find it oddly calming to-"

"Kirk! What the hell are you doing here?" Rory couldn't stifle her giggles as she heard her startled boyfriend on the other end of the line.

"There's no need to be so angry about it, I was just-"

"Are you using the phone?"

"Yes, have you got anything you'd like me to tell Rory?"

"Kirk, if you don't get out of here, I swear..." Rory heard, before the noise of Kirk retreating, disappointedly as Jess reclaimed the phone.

"I think someone wants to be your new roomie," Rory managed to get out, through laughter.

Jess groaned, "I never thought I'd say this, but I think I'd rather room with Paris."

Rory gasped in mock surprise, "But with Kirk you also get his mother – who else is gonna write your name in your underwear for you?"

"What do you think I have Luke for?"

"I hope to God you're joking."

Jess rolled his eyes as his uncle appeared in the doorway. "Your shift started twenty minutes ago," Luke said, holding up his hand when Jess opened his mouth to reply. "And I don't have time to exchange sarcastic comments – the place is packed, Taylor's trying to use my phone to contact the National Guard about a broken snow cone machine and Kirk just ran out of here as fast as he could for some reason, you're starting your shift now," he finished, before disappearing back down the stairs.

"I'm guessing you heard all that?" Jess asked Rory.

"Uh-huh."

"And I guess you won't let me completely ignore all of it?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Bye, Rory."

"Bye, Jess."

* * *

_Week 4_

_To: __Jess Mariano  
__From: Rory Gilmore  
_

_Subject: Re: Re: If you ever get this..._

_Dear Jess,_

_I realise I'm risking turmoil, destruction and general chaos by forcing you to use Luke's computer again, but Paris is using the phone to converse loudly in Portuguese with her Nanny, and you've made it clear that you need regular contact in order to not go insane in my "half-mile, four-block, freakhole of a medical experiment" of a town, so I think I'll risk it._

_I'm actually really enjoying Washington now, all the talks are really interesting, there are some really great bookshops around and Paris isn't that bad a roommate when you get used to her. Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I've had two years of getting used to her, so it's relatively bearable – even fun at times. No need to sound so surprised._

_Oops, gotta go – dinner with the senators, sorry this was so short._

_No. of senators who've hid in the bathroom for 20 minutes in order to avoid Paris: Five.  
No. of cups of coffee consumed: I've lost count.  
No. of weeks left: Two!_

_Rory_

_To: Rory Gilmore  
From: Jess Mariano  
_

_Subject: Re: Re: Re: If you ever get this..._

_Rory,_

_Glad you're enjoying Washington, and I maintain that Paris makes a better roommate than Kirk. Who, by the way, has been avoiding the diner during my shifts all week, which has been something of a plus._

_You said I wasn't allowed to complain about SH anymore, so instead I'll make up a scenario in which this town would actually be endurable. Taylor has now given up his pathetic reign over the town, and has moved to Alaska where his beard will no longer be mocked because of it's insulation in the cold weather. Kirk's mother has discovered his _Vanilla Ice _CDs and has grounded him indefinitely. Babette has lost her voice permanently. Miss Patty has finally come out of the closet after years of over-compensation and so now the male species are safe to roam the streets of Stars Hollow once again. Happy now?_

_And, at the risk of sounding like Luke, maybe you should limit the coffee intake so that you may just survive until your homecoming._

_Jess

* * *

_

_Week 5_

Rory smiled as she entered her room, arms weighed down by book-filled bags, realising that, for the first time in weeks, she had her hotel room all to herself as Paris had decided to attempt to follow a senator who'd refused to respond to the second part of her third proposal. Revelling in the privacy, she let her bags drop to the floor (in such a way as not to damage the books inside, of course) as she took a seat on her bed and picked up the phone, dialling the number she'd gotten used to calling over the past few weeks.

"Hello?"

Rory frowned slightly in confusion, "Mom?"

"No, this is Jess. The funniest thing happened to me today, I woke up and found that somehow overnight I'd magically transformed into a woman! I know this may make things a bit awkward for us, but-"

"You should have your own stand-up comedy show," Rory deadpanned.

"This comedy gold is all for you, baby," Lorelai quipped back.

"So, how come you're answering the phone?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm being cooked for at the moment," Lorelai replied, and Rory noted with happiness the contentedness in her mother's tone.

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting?"

"No, it's fine, in fact your helping to distract me from trying to interfere."

Rory heard Luke's voice cut in, "Rory, please, keep her occupied – she's a hindrance to the process."

"Apparently, I'm a danger to myself and others around me," Lorelai relayed in a satisfied tone.

"Oh, no! Did he let you try to help?" Rory replied in a tone of mock horror.

"All I did was stir something!"

"Uh-oh..."

"And the plate next to the pot I was stirring just happened to slide off the side and shatter on the floor by itself."

"Honestly, Luke should know you better than to allow you within five feet of any food when it's mid-preparation."

"He's naive, he'll learn over time."

"So, I'm guessing that my boyfriend isn't around."

"No, he's probably skulking somewhere."

"Very funny."

"Maybe kicking a few puppies."

"Hilarious."

"Making obscene gestures at nuns, that kind of thing."

"Do you ever stop?"

"Huh," Lorelai said, remembering something Rory had said earlier.

"What?"

"It's just...it still feels weird, you calling him 'boyfriend'," she replied, honestly.

"What should I call him? My gentleman caller?" Rory teased.

"I guess it's not you calling him that, it's the way you say it, with that newlywed 'I can't believe I get to refer to him in this way' kind of expression."

Rory shrugged, "I'm happy, mom."

"Me too, kid," Lorelai said, smiling as she watched Luke, still busy preparing the food.

"I guess I should let you get back to your date," Rory said, reluctantly. "I'll see you in a week mom, and remember – no more cooking, or anything resembling it!"

"Darn, there goes my favourite activity," Lorelai replied, sarcastically. "See you, kid."

"Bye, mom."

* * *

_Week 6_

_Dear Jess,_

_Seeing as I'm writing this letter during my last week here, I'm not expecting a reply, but since I'm currently trapped in a closet I felt I might as well write. Yup, you read that correctly, and while you've probably already figured out that it's something to do with Paris, I'll fill in the blanks for you. Paris has a date._

_Yes, you read that correctly, also. There's this guy called Jaime who, despite attending Princeton which is apparently a major shortcoming, is pretty perfect for her. If you're wondering how this leads to me being shut in a closet, Jaime's just about to pick her up and, according to Paris, I'm looking too 'dateable' to be allowed to be visible at the moment. And so ends the last story you'll hear of the craziness of Paris Gellar because, for one you're probably sick of them by now, and more importantly I only have three more days of sharing a room with her._

_Which brings me to my reason for actually writing this thing – I'm coming home soon! Now, I figure you're not exactly going to want to tag along to the Summer Insanity Festival with me and mom, but I should be able to get away eventually, so what do you say to the bridge at five? I promise not to insult Hemingway if you elaborate on the endurable Stars Hollow scenario that you outlined in your email._

_Hope to see you then,_

_Rory

* * *

_

He wasn't checking his watch.

He knew that it would bear the same message of 17:02 as it had when he'd checked a few seconds ago, and looking again would just make him feel more pathetic for showing up fifteen minutes early and feeling impatient when she was two minutes late. Instead, Jess focussed resolutely on his book, staring at the words without taking anything in, but that didn't matter, all that mattered was that he wasn't looking at that stupid time piece again. Because that would be pathetic.

Eventually, he rolled his sleeves up and, in doing so, couldn't help but notice that it was now 17:03. Huh.

Okay, so maybe he was a little pathetic. It'd been six weeks, four emails, one letter and several phone calls since he'd seen the only interesting person in this town, and that was enough to make anyone crazy. Now, if it wasn't for the fact that she was – his eyes flicked back to the offending object without his permission – four minutes later than she'd said she'd be, he could have regained his sanity by now. He contemplated reaching for a cigarette.

He quickly decided against this as, after the longest – he wasn't going to look – five minutes of his life, he heard footsteps approaching him. Refusing to show the fact that he was currently doing backflips on the inside, he remained staring at his book until she broke the silence.

"Excuse me, I don't think I've seen you around these parts before," Rory joked, smirking down at him. Apparently, six weeks had served to her make her eyes an even brighter blue than before. Either that, or he'd somehow forgotten their exact deep cerulean colour – he resolved never to do so again.

"Huh, how strange," he said, playing along.

"I guess you just don't look like the kind of guy who'd want to live in this town."

"I have my reasons," he replied, ambiguously, his trademark smirk back and better than ever.

Rory grinned, lowering herself to the ground as she took a seat next to him, "And what would those be?"

By form of an answer, Jess pulled her in for a kiss; she happily responded, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he pulled her in by the waist. It was less gentle than she was used to, and she responded with equal fervour as she felt the effect of a long summer of separation. Feeling his tongue skim her bottom lip, she instantly granted access, allowing him to familiarise himself with the contours of her mouth once again. Breathless and flushed, she pulled back, needing air.

"Good answer," she said, after regaining oxygen.

"I thought so," he agreed, leaving an arm wrapped around her shoulder as she leaned into him. He inhaled slowly, relishing the familiar scent of vanilla and coffee.

She turned to face him again. "So, you didn't miss me that much, then?" she teased, a smirk playing on her lips, causing him to pull her back in for another, slightly gentler kiss.

After a few more enjoyable minutes of what Lorelai would maturely describe as 'tonsil hockey', Rory pulled back again, resting her head on Jess' shoulder so that she could see what he'd been reading.

When she read the title, she let out a peal of triumphant laughter. "So, what happened to Rand being a political nut?" she teased, still looking down at _The Fountainhead_.

"There's still no debating that, I just thought I'd give it another try while you were away," he responded, starting to wish he'd thought before bringing that damn book.

"Ha! You _so_ missed me," she teased, wrapping an arm around his waist and positioning her head on his shoulder so as to get a better look at the book. "So, how far did you get up to?" She asked, and he flipped to the relevant page.

After a few moments of silence, he asked, "What are you doing?"

"Reading, of course. C'mon, we can read it together," Rory said, her eyes still glued to the page as she grabbed one side of the book.

Not entirely satisfied with reading the works of someone who was, in his humble opinion, clinically insane during the first time he'd seen his girlfriend all summer, he opted for Plan B: distraction.

Rory found her concentration slipping as Jess started to kiss his way up her neck, suppressing a gasp as he bit down on the soft skin of her neck. Stubbornly, she kept her gaze firmly on the book, trying not to let her voice waver as she said, "Nice try, Mariano."

However, despite her best efforts, hers was a lost cause as soon as he found _that_ spot behind her ear and, without a second thought, the book was discarded onto the side of the bridge as she focussed her full attention back onto her boyfriend.

God, she loved that word.

* * *

**THE END**

**(And it only took around two years.)**

**Okay, there's a reason that, in my stories, Rory and Jess generally don't get together until the very end, because I never really know what to do with them once they're actually together, but I'm hoping this was okay, and not as boring as I thought it was.**

**Oh, and because of how stupid this website is about putting links, I couldn't put actual email adresses in the From: and To: parts of the email adress, which was annoying, because it makes it look less like an actual email, but oh well.  
**

**Thank you for reading this far, and I beg that you review.**

**But, more importantly MERRY CHRISTMAS!**


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